SNP to offer public sector staff four-day week in return for pay cut

SCOTLAND’S public sector workers are to be offered a four-day week in exchange for cuts in pay, in an effort to tackle soaring wage bills.

Documents published alongside an SNP spending review, which outlined the need for swingeing cuts to plug an estimated £3.5billion black hole, state that a shorter working week could be an “opportunity” to save money on wages.

The Scottish Tories dismissed the plan to tie pay to reduced hours as a “fantasy” and warned that if implemented it would see a 20 per cent cut in capacity in vital public services. However, the Scottish Government said that it was committed to exploring “non-pay benefits” amid estimates that around 30,000 of 585,400 public sector jobs in Scotland will have to be cut.

The proposal opens the door to alternatives to redundancies, such as offering an additional day off in return for a 20 per cent pay cut. However, Liz Smith, finance spokeswoman for the Scottish Tories, described the plan as “nonsense”.

“The SNP have already presided over a £3.5billion black hole in Scotland’s public finances and these fantasy plans would only increase that gap,” she said.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “The 2022-23 public sector pay policy introduces the option for employers, in discussion with trade unions, to explore piloting a four-day working week. “More detail will be set out in due course, with the aim to begin the pilot later this year.”

♦ The deadline for the beleaguered Scottish census has been extended for a second time after it recorded the lowest ever response rate in the modern era. National Records of Scotland will now accept returns until June 12 after revealing that more than 400,000 households had still failed to fill in the form despite a four-week extension.

The 87.5 per cent response rate is well below its 94 per cent target and the 97 per cent achieved in the rest of the UK.