SNP must wise up to the fact it has to make tough choices

THE Auditor General is warning that SNP ministers have been too slow to react to financial pressures (“Warning SNP government faces bursting its budget”, The Herald, November 17). Kate Forbes warned that the public sector required reshaping with staff levels and the number of quangos needing to be reduced. John Swinney would have been aware of this warning when he stepped in to cover Ms Forbes’ maternity leave but nothing has been done.

The Deputy First Minister has announced £600 million in budget cuts, with £400m of that being in health and social care. This is a political choice. The SNP has increased the number of quangos by one third in the last 10 years, with the cost of government increasing from £2 billion to £4.5bn. This SNP government continues to spend £9m on overseas offices that duplicate the work of British embassies. It spends £20m on constitutional issues, having used at least 20 civil service staff to produce the first of its series of papers campaigning for independence.

The SNP would rather cut the money spent on the nation’s health than cut the number of spin doctors, which has risen from 115 to 176 in the last four years, costing us around £4m a year. Unless the SNP starts to realise that we all have to cut our coat to suit our cloth, next year’s budget would be reduced by any overspend, perpetuating the issue. The SNP needs to wake up to the fact that the current economic situation requires it to make tough choices and it needs to make them now. Maybe it could start with some of the examples above.

Jane Lax, Aberlour.