Efficiency is the answer to choice of services or taxes
rise by considerably more than inflation each year – but it doesn’t. Scotland is actually doing a bit better than England in keeping the NHS running and is also genuinely trying to integrate the social and healthcare systems – the Scottish Government deserves credit for that.
The difficulty is that we are in the early stages of a demographic timebomb which will gather pace as the 2020’s progress. The proportion of older people in the population will rise swiftly. Unless we are prepared to accept an NHS which gives far worse service than it does today it is going to cost much more money at a time when the overall public finances (even assuming we avoid the economic idiocy of independence) will still be in bad shape.
The choice we appear to have is between having the service we want and the taxes we don’t.
In fact there is another way and the Scottish Government has the power to take it – but it requires courage and leadership. The answer is efficiency.
Before you nod your head let me tell you what efficiency means. What it means is that if nurses and teachers aren’t any good they are removed.
The final salary pension schemes in the public sector should be replaced by defined contribution schemes – it is a disgrace employees in the private sector who have given up their final salary pensions continue to subsidise those in the public sector who have not.
We need to involve the private sector more rather than less in our schools and health service. We need to ask ourselves when adding yet another layer of safety standards – do we really need this?
When we consider extra “rights” for workers we need to ask ourselves whether that is fair on the companies and wider society who have to pay for them.
Unless we are prepared to do things like this we are going to have to swallow some serious tax rises or accept that our public services get worse. The Scottish Government does not need more powers to grasp this agenda, it could do it right now. Pinstripe is a senior member of Scotland’s financial services community.
‘‘ We need to ask ourselves when adding yet another layer of safety standards – do we really need this?