Lib Dems claim Salmond planning budget ‘blame game’

lex Salmond will not make a real attempt to get his budget passed this year, preferring instead to indulge in a “blame game” ahead of next year’s Holyrood elections, Tavish Scott, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader warned today.
Mr Scott launched his attack on the First Minister ahead of key cross-party budget talks at Holyrood.
John Swinney, [...]

Tories lay out terms for budget support

ohn Swinney will be told this week to introduce a raft of savings including an end to free prescriptions and a public sector recruitment freeze if he wants to get his budget passed.
Scotland’s finance minister will meet opposition parties on Wednesday this week for a crunch meeting which he hopes will pave the way for [...]

Why a loose SNP-Labour pact might not be such a bad idea after all

very now and then, a story appears which makes everyone sit up and take notice: not because it is true but because it seems so utterly unbelievable that everybody starts rubbishing it.
That happened with the Scotsman splash two days ago suggesting that a senior SNP figure had been fishing for a possible SNP-Labour coalition after [...]

CBI weighs into council tax freeze debate

usiness group CBI Scotland yesterday became the latest organisation to intervene in the increasingly acrimonious row over the council tax freeze.
The business organisation called on John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, to institute a fourth-year of the freeze, claiming that would provide valuable help for small businesses all over Scotland.
The council tax freeze was one of [...]

Analysis: the splits between Scotland and England show

One hundred days. That is all it has taken to re-shape politics in Britain. Not only do we have a Liberal Democrat in (temporary) charge of Number Ten but something more fundamental has happened too.
After just 100 days of this coalition government, Scotland and England are diverging once again. The administrations in Edinburgh and London [...]

What’s behind call for end to council tax freeze?

ordon Matheson, the leader of Glasgow City Council, ignited a public debate over the council tax today by calling on the Scottish Government to drop its plans for a fourth-year tax freeze.
Mr Matheson has written to John Swinney, Scotland’s Finance Secretary, asking for councils to be given the chance to raise council tax next year.
The [...]

Opinion: Time for inaction and excuses about cuts is over

strong>By David Watt, Executive Director of the Institute of Directors Scotland
Crawford Beveridge was right when he warned that his Independent Budget Review report would make uncomfortable reading.
The scale of the cuts outlined by the IBR is alarming; however it should not surprise anybody familiar with Scotland’s enormous and ever-growing public sector. For too long [...]

Up to 60,000 public sector jobs to go – budget review

he squeeze on public spending will hit Scotland just as much as the rest of the country. Today, an independent review commissioned by ministers has warned that up to 60,000 public sector workers in Scotland could lose their jobs in the next few years. It wants this to come, as far as possible, from natural [...]

Redundancy pledge paints Sturgeon into a corner

arlier this month Nicola Sturgeon took the extraordinary step of writing to every one of the Scottish health service’s 170,000 employees to tell them their jobs were safe.
This is what the Health Secretary told them: “There will be no compulsory redundancies in the NHS. In other words, none of you will ‘lose’ your job. That [...]

Comment: Pay cuts must be seen to be fair if they are going to work

By John Knox
I hear the sound of a chain-saw being started up. Foresters Osborne and Laws have laid aside the Labourer’s axe. Instead they are resorting to industrial-scale demolition of the forest, believing that’s the only way to clear the undergrowth of waste and repay the national debt.
A sense of panic has set in. Health [...]

Opinion: Calman tax plans are bureaucratic, confusing – and damaging to Scotland

John Swinney, the Scottish Government finance secretary, gives his views on the Calman Commission’s income tax proposals
There is now a broad consensus that we need a new fiscal settlement for Scotland.
The Scottish Government report published last week showed that, within the UK, Scotland can look forward to eye-watering cuts of perhaps £25 billion to £35 [...]

Sketch: lava actually

t last, it was time for the big televised debate between the main party leaders.
That’s right. First Minister’s Questions.
After an Easter break, the weekly roister-doistering got off to its usual formulaic start with Labour leader Elmer Fudd, born Iain John Bull Gray, asking First Minister Eck Salmond, born Dolores Braveheart Blenkinsop, about his engagements for [...]

Swinney bid to represent UK at energy summit

John Swinney, the Scottish Finance Secretary, has launched an audacious attempt to represent the UK at an energy summit in America – arguing that UK Government ministers are otherwise engaged fighting the election.
Mr Swinney has written to Ed Miliband, the UK Energy Secretary, suggesting that Scottish ministers be given the authority to represent the UK [...]

Public sector already making savings ‘but it has to do more’

Scotland’s councils made more than £800 million in efficiency savings last year but they need to do much, much more than that if they want to negotiate the next few years of cutbacks and spending curbs without cutting frontline services. That was the message from Audit Scotland which published a report this morning into public [...]

Analysis: mayors the way to combat cuts?

By John Knox
Local councils are turning to the unenviable task of trying to make their services fit their budgets now that they know exactly what they have to spend in the coming year. Earlier this month, the finance secretary John Swinney announced how the £12 billion allocated to local government is to be shared out [...]

Swinney and Sturgeon square up in Left-Right split

potentially divisive Right-Left split has appeared within the Scottish Cabinet, with John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, on one side and Nicola Sturgeon, the Deputy First Minister, on the other.
The issue is simple but it is also fundamental to the future direction of the SNP Scottish Government – the use of private companies to provide [...]

Scottish Government’s budget passed without usual stramash

MSPs passed the SNP’s budget tonight – with considerably less fuss than in previous years.
John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, had still been forced into concessions to secure the opposition support he needed to get it through, but not on the scale of previous years.
Mr Swinney announced a £20 million boost to cope with demand for [...]

Opposition parties unite to expose capital budget secrets

IT is the political equivalent of the total eclipse of the moon: the opposition parties at Holyrood have today managed to ignore their differences and unite around a common goal.
Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have agreed on a joint strategy for the budget, or at least one part of it.
On the [...]

Labour to ‘ignore’ SNP during General Election

abour is to adopt the controversial strategy of ignoring the SNP completely during the General Election campaign in Scotland, Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, revealed today.
Speaking to Caledonian Mercury, Mr Murphy said the Scottish Labour party was going to concentrate solely on the Tories during the campaign – even though the Nationalists represent [...]

Austerity budget may be Swinney’s easiest yet

t is somewhat ironic that John Swinney, the Finance Secretary, will find it easier to get his budget through the Scottish Parliament this year, when the money is tight, than he has done in previous years.
This is Mr Swinney’s third budget. The first two proved to be torturous and difficult affairs. His main courting partner [...]

Diary: Tories hold key to Swinney’s coffers – again

The Conservatives have been in private discussions with the Finance Secretary for the past few weeks trying to hammer out concessions which will allow them to vote for the SNP budget.
The Tories started by arguing for the mutualisation of Scottish Water and the abandonment of the SNP’s plan to scrap prescription charges but these were [...]