Tough choices

The Auditor General is warning that SNP ministers have been too slow to react to financial pressures (“Holyrood faces ‘real risk’ of first budget overspend in history”, Scotsman Online, 17 November). Finance Secretary 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 number of quangos has increased by a third in the last ten years with the cost of government increasing from £2 billion to £4.5bn. The SNP government continue to spend £9m on overseas offices that duplicate the work of British embassies. They spend £20m on constitutional issues, having used at least 20 civil servant staff to produce the first of their series of papers campaigning for independence.

The SNP seem to be burying their heads in the sand on having to deal with the impact of inflation and are not cutting their coat according to their cloth. Of course, it is easy to just blame Westminster for not increasing your budget. The impact, however, will be that next year’s budget would be reduced by any overspend, perpetuating the issue. The SNP need to wake up to the fact that the current economic situation requires them to make tough choices and they need to make them now. They could start with the examples given above.

JANE LAX Aberlour, Moray