The SNP Government may be forced to make civil servants redundant in order to meet its own savings target, a leading economist has warned.
John Swinney has set a goal of reducing the headcount by 0.5 per cent annually by 2031 in a drive to tackle the near-£5 billion black hole in the public finances expected by the end of the decade.
The Government has a long-held principle of not allowing compulsory redundancies within the civil service, with the goal due to be met by not replacing staff in some departments after they have left.
Economist warns on attrition
A civil service produced report last month raised the spectre of a voluntary redundancy scheme, though ministers have steadfastly said they will not sack public sector workers.
But David Phillips, the head of devolved and local government finance at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the Government may struggle to get the workforce it needs without compulsory reductions.
Appearing before the Public Service Reform Committee at Holyrood on Thursday, he said: “We have some concerns about delivering this just through attrition.
“Because attrition, if it happens randomly across the workforce, that might not be delivering you the sort of scale of cuts you need.
“At the same time as cutting the overall workforce, there will be elements of the workforce where we know that either demand pressures or changes in technology and the role that workers that have skills in that area can play in the public sector might need increases.
“You might need increases in the number of nurses, for example, but you also might need increases in the number of software engineers and people that can help drive the use of technology in the public sector.
Redundancy schemes considered
“While there may be scope to use natural attrition and redeploy some people, we think that, given the kind of pace of change that’s now needed, the Scottish Government may need to consider schemes that involve redundancies, at least, in the first instance, voluntary redundancies.
“But, if it really wants to deliver this, it may need to consider, unfortunately – I’m not saying this is something we’re pleased to see – compulsory redundancies in certain areas so that it can increase the roles in other areas.”
The Record previously revealed how public sector workers in Scotland have started to "panic" as a result of John Swinney's plan to centralise services.
The First Minister announced last week the SNP Government intends to slash the number of NHS health boards from 14 to just two, as well as reducing the number of local authorities across the country.
Union warns against job cuts
Swinney yesterday refused to put a number on the roles that could be lost as a result - but previously insisted he did not expect to see compulsory redundancies.
But Dougie Maguire, deputy Scottish secretary at Unite, said such a claim was not credible following previous examples of SNP-imposed centralisation.
He pointed to the creation of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in 2013 which saw jobs cut and morale plummet among remaining staff.
And the Unite chief warned the First Minister that unions would not tolerate redundancies.
The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.
