Scots police funding black hole wiped out
Scotland's police chief has welcomed a £60 million increase in funding for the force that will wipe out a looming black hole in its finances.
Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said the Covid-19 pandemic had shown the "relentless"natureofpolicingtokeep thepublicsafeduringthepandemic.
The budget unveiled by finance secretary Kate Forbes at Holyrood will see a record £1.3 billion invested in policing, including a £60m increase in the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) resource budget and an extra £15m to mitigate the impacts of coronavirus.
The overall settlement will eliminate a £50m structural deficit that had been looming asamajorchallengeforpolice Scotland.
The Chief Constable said: "The last 12 months have demonstrated the relentless nature of policing – our mission to prevent harm, support communities and keep
people safe has been evident throughout the pandemic. Thereformofpolicinginscotland has brought many benefits to all communities across the country."
The budget will also see an increased settlement of £343m for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, as well as a rise in the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) budget to £129.3m. Community justice services increase to more than £118.7m, while the Scottish Prison Service gets £72.8m to modernise the prison estate. There will also be funding of £18m for servicestosupportvictimsofcrime.
tish) social security make up almost three-quarters of the resource (i.e. day-to-day spending) budget.
Health and social security– via wellbeing and inequalities commitments – are top priorities for the Scottish Government, local Government less so.
It’s not difficult to see how increasing pressures in the NHS and on demand-led benefits could result in a relative spending squeeze on councils.
Some of these quandaries were examined in the Government’s accompanying Medium-term Financial Strategy (MTFS) document, but not very convincingly.
How much can key workers expect to be compensated in the future? Again the MTFS highlights the difficulties, with a 3 per cent pay award over the next five years costing £1.6 billion more than a 1 per cent pay award.
And for some, even 3 per cent may seem on the stingy side. Of course all of this is highly conjectural at present, as the ongoing pandemic makes the economic future, and also the funding needs of most public services, highly uncertain.
As a result, each Scottish and UK budget is simply a point-in-time guess of what will be needed.
The current figures will inevitably be augmented by a mixture of future UK and Scottish Government Budget updates and potentially by internal Scottish Parliament agreements, especially post the 2021 Scottish election.
Furthermore, there are key questions which remain highly relevant, but far from resolved.
For example:
- When, and by how much, should Covid-related support for workers, businesses and public services be reduced in future?
- How much spare capacity should be built into the NHS and into education in case of ongoing, or future, pandemic (and other) problems?
- What taxes will need to rise, and by how much, to accommodate any increase in underlying funding post the pandemic?
At present, budget exercises are simply limping from one point in the crisis
to the next, without addressing these fundamental questions.
It will be interesting to see what finally emerges in terms of ‘a changed world’ and also how closely the politicians view of this changed world chimes with that of the public.
John Mclaren is a political economist who runs the scottishtrends.co.uk website.