Plenty of vision in government plan, but delivery is more challenging

The Scottish Government's plan for the coming year is light on legislation, but there is more meat in the administrative sections, if it can move from process into action.

I outlined the key elements of the Scottish Government's 'Plan for Scotland 2016/17' in a briefing yesterday. So let's step back and look at the plan overall.

The main purpose of the plan is to set out the government's legislative programme - it's the Scottish version of the Queen's Speech. There are 14 Bills, but most of them are technical or dealing with specific issues like Domestic Abuse. They are also largely uncontroversial and even Bills on big issues like social security and child poverty are about the process of how the government will administer new powers.

The one exception is the Air Passenger Duty Bill. When this tax is devolved, the government wants to halve it with the longer term aim of abolishing it. This plan makes a mockery of the government's climate change commitments by dumping tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It is also unaffordable in the current budget and gives a tax cut to the wealthiest in society - 50% of Scots don't even use air travel.

Other promised legislation that campaign groups will want to build on, like the Climate Change Bill and Good Food Nation Bill, have been pencilled in for later in the parliament. Overall, you wonder if the legislative programme would have been more adventurous if the SNP had secured a parliamentary majority in May. Minority government's tend to push more into administrative action, rather than risking parliamentary votes. I suspect the May draft of this plan looked somewhat different!

There are two big challenges in the administrative sections.

The first is finance. Austerity isn't going away and the next budget will have to set out taxation as well as spending plans. This plan severely limits the government's room for manoeuvre by promising no change in the basic rate of income tax. There are still plenty of opportunities to increase revenue on the fringes, but only the basic rate provides enough income to really challenge austerity and tackle the issues identified in the plan.

The second is public service reform. There is a whole section in the plan devoted to how the government wants to engage communities and decentralise. However, the actual measures are pretty modest, like 1% community budgets. On the other hand, we have centralising measures like the regionalisation of education and the ring fencing of council tax. That's before the review of health boards and councils gets under way.

There are a number of measures in the plan that could be truly transformational. The main one is increasing early years provision. Doubling the provision with 200 new centres and 20,000 extra staff is potentially huge. The problem is that £500m doesn't meet the cost, unless the plan is to do it on the cheap, with low paid staff rather than properly qualified early year's professionals.

Which leads me neatly into social care. It was precisely a race to the bottom in pay and conditions that got us into the mess we are in today. There are new resources to address this, but implementation is a bit of a guddle. Creating a fairly paid, properly trained workforce that has the time to care is absolutely crucial to getting patients out of expensive acute hospital beds. This is an opportunity to put some meat on the worthy Labour Market Strategy by creating sectoral collective bargaining structures for the care sector. This would get all the stakeholders working together to deliver the agreed outcomes.

This is crucial to another big element of the plan - shifting NHS resources into community services. This is absolutely the right policy, but very difficult politically. The slightest hint of a hospital closure or even downsizing creates a local storm. The problem for the government is that they came to power on the back of this very type of political protest. Now their financial plans for NHS Scotland look very challenging unless they can free up acute resources.

Finally, there are some other positives in the plan. The police officer numbers target has been dropped and replaced by the ‘right mix and numbers of officers and staff’. It will take some time to repair the damage and get back to a balanced workforce, but it’s a start.

There is also a commitment to improve value and reduce the cost to the public purse of PPP schemes, including ending contracts ‘where possible and appropriate’. The NHS and some local authorities are starting to get into gear on this after UNISON’s ‘Combating Austerity’ report highlighted potential savings.

Equally, the section on inclusive growth and fair work, demonstrates a clear understanding of how unequal societies damage growth. This section includes measures to mitigate the Trade Union Act and support for learning. You wouldn’t see this infographic in a UK government publication!

So, the limited legislative programme reflects the challenges of minority government. However, government doesn’t always need to legislate to achieve its policy goals. There is plenty of positive vision and process in this plan – delivery is as always more challenging.

It's Public Services Stupid!

Public services are the number one election issue for the majority of Scottish voters.

Today we have published a full scale poll undertaken by Survation, for UNISON Scotland, that asked Scottish voters to explain their priorities. They said that public services, welfare, jobs and pay were the most important issues for them in the coming general election.

They were also clear about their spending priorities.If the next government was to raise £2bn by cracking down on tax avoidance, 58% of respondents believe that the money should be spent on improving public services, compared to 19% who think it should be spent on reducing public borrowing, and 17% who think that it should be used on income tax cuts.

This is the complete opposite to George Osborne’s Budget priorities this week as I set out last night. It is clear today that while yesterday's announcement might have brought the average cuts down over the spending review period, it still means around £2bn of Barnett consequential cuts for the Scottish Budget. That is around 30,000 further public service job losses in Scotland.

Scottish voters also had clear views about who should deliver public services. Half of respondents believe that ‘public sector organisations (such as local councils and the NHS)’ deliver the best quality public services. This compares to only 16% who believe that ‘charities and social enterprises (such as co-operatives)’ and 14% who believe ‘private sector organisations (such as businesses)’ deliver the best quality public services.

Public accountability was an important factor with more than two thirds saying public bodies are accountable to the public. If a greater proportion of council services was funded locally through council tax and business rates, 44% believe that those services would become more locally accountable to the needs of residents, compared to 12% who believe those services would become less locally accountable to the needs of residents.

Scottish voters also agree with UNISON that if acompany wins a government-funded contract it should have to pay the living wage.

This poll shows that Scottish voters understand that public services not only support our most vulnerable people, they help grow the economy and contribute to ending poverty and low pay. This is something theUK ConDem coalition is ignoring with their dogged adherence to austerity economics.

 

 

Job losses, an ageing workforce and why its going to get worse

50,000 jobs have been lost from the Scottish public sector workforce and a further 60,000 could go by 2019. Those who are left are getting older and young people are the losers.

I have been crunching the latest workforce data published before Christmas, together with other reports and forecasts on public sector staffing levels. There are three key points to make.

Firstly, the workforce continues to shrink in total and as a proportion of the Scottish workforce. The public sector as a percentage of the total Scottish workforce has fallen to 21.5% (547,300 headcount), barely one in five of the workforce. 49,500 jobs have been lost in the public sector across Scotland since the financial crash; 4,400 in the last year. That has an inevitable impact on the quantity and quality of public services, as well as the local economy. Public sector workers spend in their community and this, together with the wage freeze, is a major cause of the slow economic recovery. The big numbers have come from local government, although proportionately colleges have been hardest hit.

Secondly, the workforce is getting older. In 2013, the average age was 44 years and four months compared with 43 years and nine months in 2009. The biggest losers are young people, with those aged under 20 falling by 25%. Those aged between 50-59 actually increased by 5%. This is creating a retirement and skills blip that is likely to get worse if job losses continue under austerity economics, as recruitment freezes keep young people out of public service. Older workers on small average pensions are less likely to retire early because they will need to work on due to living costs and the later pension retirement age. They are also more expensive to release under early departure schemes that are anyway declining. The big job losses have actually come from natural wastage.

Thirdly, a further 60,000 jobs could be lost over the next five years. This year and next the numbers will be less severe, but after that they are forecast to increase dramatically. This number is extrapolated from the OBR and IFS forecasts for the UK, taking into account job losses already inflicted on Scotland. It is always difficult to be precise with this sort of calculation, but previous forecasts have not been far off the mark. It could actually be worse, because future cuts are likely to be concentrated in revenue spending as the CPPR paper highlights, and that is before any deliberate shift of spending from capital to revenue as the Scottish Government favours.

All of this creates very special problems for the workers who are left behind, as they try to keep the plates spinning on deteriorating Scottish public services.

Regulatory cuts and the meat scandal

Sunday newspapers doing what they do best today, giving us some in depth analysis and breaking new ground with the week's news stories.

The standout story comes from Rob Edwards in the Sunday Herald. Three key regulatory statistics form the basis for the story:

• The number of meat inspectors in Scotland has fallen by more than 50%, from 170 in 2003 to 75 today.
• The number of samples taken by Scottish local authorities to test for food safety has fallen from more than 16,000 in 2008-09 to 10,200 in 2011-12
• Over the last four years there has been a 21% drop in the number of specialist food safety officers employed by local authorities and an 11% fall in the number of environmental health officers.

Then an expert to give us an overiew in this case Professor Andrew Watterson, head of the occupational and environmental health research group at the University of Stirling He argued that the horsemeat fiasco was a "sentinel event" with widespread implications. "We need to protect public health better. Declines in meat inspector numbers and local authority food safety officers, along with reduced food sampling, must contribute to a weakening of public health standards and the possibility of criminal abuses in the food system." He also criticised Government ministers for trying to heap the blame on food processors when it was their responsibility to safeguard public health, saying: "We need to revive, not marginalise, environmental health and food safety and raise standards of protection for consumers."

And my own contribution. "Unison's Scottish organiser, Dave Watson, accused governments of forgetting the lessons learned from the BSE crisis in the 1990s about controlling the meat industry. He said: "Only strong, independent inspection can properly protect the public from industry malpractice. The current scandal follows cuts in meat inspection and environmental health services, proving that 'light touch' regulation has been a disaster for consumers."

On a UK basis, the Observer today gives us an update on the latest developments and an excellent piece by Will Hutton pointing to how the meat scandal shows all that is rotten about the free marketeers.

"As an effective regulator, it (FSA) was disliked by "wealth-generating" supermarkets and food companies. Its 1,700 inspectors were agents of the state terrifying honest-to-God entrepreneurs with unannounced spot checks and enforced "gold-plated" food labelling. Regulation should be "light touch".

This is a point we made last year and again at the outset of the scandal. The meat industry has been lobbying for self-regulation for years. Now it has come back to bite them they are falling over themselves to reassure us. As Hutton puts it:

"Paterson, beneath the ideological bluster, is as innocent about business as Bambi. He finds himself with no answer to the charge that his hollowed-out department, a gutted FSA with 800 fewer inspectors and eviscerated local government were and are incapable of ensuring public health."

I could not have put it better myself.

Cost of austerity economics

Tom Gordon has an interesting piece in today’s Sunday Herald based on Scottish Labour research. This shows that more than £600m has been spent to pay off Scottish public sector staff in redundancy and similar payments over the past five years. Part of my response is quoted in the article, but space limitations means a fuller analysis is justified. 

My first reaction might surprise many people because £600m was smaller than I would have expected. 51,700 public sector jobs have been lost in Scotland since the crash and that is a net figure allowing for some new recruits. It would appear that this is the cost of getting rid of 34,300 staff; therefore some 20,000 staff have gone through natural wastage at no cost to the public purse. 

Labour’s Ken Macintosh is of course correct in saying that it is ‘perverse’ to spend this amount of money to fire rather than hire staff in the current economic circumstances. John Swinney is also correct in identifying the primary cause as being the UK Government. Although the Scottish Government has exacerbated the problem with decisions such as the Council Tax freeze and the police civilian staff debacle.    

The problem is primarily at UK level because the cuts are a key element of the ConDem austerity economic strategy. Contrary to assurances at the outset, the public sector jobs have not been replaced by private sector jobs and the deficit has not been reduced as they claimed. As we and others predicted it simply increased unemployment, with the consequential additional public spending, and damaged the economy even more through the loss of demand and consumer confidence. 

The other reason for the problem resting at UK level is more complex. Councils, health boards and others consider their decisions on cutting staff based on the payback to their budget. For example, councils will typically let a worker go on voluntary redundancy/early retirement if the cost can be recouped within three years. That’s fine as far their budget goes, but it ignores the wider costs to the Scottish and UK governments of adding to the ranks of the unemployed. For example, for every £1 spent by a local authority 64p is reinvested back into the local economy. This means that only a fraction of the savings made on paper from cutting staff are a real saving to the public purse. 

Of course councils and other public bodies have to balance their budgets although they could do more to challenge the consequences. They may not have to take account of the bigger picture, but the UK government can and should. They don’t because staff cuts are nothing to do with the budget deficit, and everything to do with an ideological drive to reduce the size of the state.

Horsemeat scandal points to wider food safety concerns

Just about everyone has had some fun in the last week over the horsemeat burgers scandal – “Tesco's burgers, a mane part of a stable diet”, is just one of my favorites. Eating horsemeat in itself may be ‘neigh’ problem, as Christine Jardine argues in today’s Scotsman, but it does raise wider concerns about meat inspection.


With all the focus on horsemeat it has missed most people that the tests also showed that 89% samples had pig meat in them. This is clearly a serious cultural and religious issue for some communities in Scotland and for the rest of us who expect a beefburger to be precisely that. UNISON has previously identified similar concerns over chickens. Ever wondered why some cheap chicken fillets look and taste spongy? It is likely to be that they have been injected with water and pig protein to bulk them up. Check the packet to see what percentage of the chicken is actually chicken next time you buy, or ask the question in the restaurant or carry out.

Proper investment in trading standards and meat hygiene services could have meant the horsemeat burger scandal was picked up in the UK rather than relying on the Irish authorities. However, since 2000 EU officials have tried to push responsibility for abattoir hygiene onto meat plants and to reduce the role of independent meat inspectors, or even transfer their duties under some circumstances to the meat plants themselves. The UK government with its deregulation agenda has also taken hands off approach to meat inspection. Added to which cuts to these vital services are severely limiting the ability of hard-working trading standards officers and meat inspectors to protect the public.

This is now a problem we need to face up to following the announcement last year that Scotland is to have its own food standards body. Something we welcomed in principle but I cautioned that;

“Any change to the delivery module of meat inspection in Scotland should ensure it is protecting the public, not serving industry, therefore we must ensure this is not used as a backdoor to privatisation.”

Scotland has rising levels of E-Coli and our own tragic example of the consequences in the Wishaw outbreak that killed five people. There are over 3,000 reported cases of food poisoning in Scotland every year, although the true figure is thought to be much more as only ten percent of people visit their doctor when they suffer the symptoms. For most of us it can be an unpleasant experience with a day or two off work. However, for vulnerable groups it can be much more serious.

The real danger in this case is the quality and wholesomeness of meat in abattoirs. We need to avoid disease and contamination, and things like excrement making it into our food. This danger is avoided in Scotland by the work of meat inspectors and vets in abattoirs.

Another issue that arises out of the horseburger scandal is food labeling. This is one of the many issues overseen by trading standards officers, yet services across Scotland have reduced as council budgets have dwindled. Trading standards officers work hard to ensure that products pose no risk to consumers, but as their budgets are slashed, their ability to identify problems, inspect premises and prosecute wrongdoers has become severely limited. There are similar issues with Environmental Health staff who are responsible for inspecting food premises.

The public deserve to have confidence in the products they buy; this confidence comes from trading standards services having the resources to check the labeling products and pick up offences early, and from the work of meat inspectors and vets in abattoirs. The issue with horsemeat burgers is yet another example of why the industry should not regulate itself. It is vital that we continue the independent physical inspection of meat in Scotland.

Let's make them care in 2013

Happy New Year! Although as I write this it’s raining again, reflecting what was a pretty miserable year for most and few prospects for improvement in the coming year.

For all but the rich and privileged, protected by the ConDem government, the relentless impact of austerity economics continues to blight our public services and the communities that rely upon them. A government that takes three times from the working poor as it does the banks is surely morally and economically bankrupt. And let’s not forget the impact on young people, who are struggling to find a job at a decent wage or a house to buy or rent at an affordable price.

There is a better way and we need to find new methods in 2013 of making the case for it. That strategy must challenge inequality. Our success in highlighting tax dodging shows that campaigns that highlight inequality can work. We need to make the link between inequality and the impact of the wider economy, explaining how more equal societies do better on nearly every measure. As Nelson Mandela put it so well, “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”

On the bargaining front it will be another challenging year. Public sector pay cuts have been the largest contributor to public spending reductions. This not only damages standards of living, but has also contributed to the length of the recession. The Scottish Living Wage has brought some respite and we need to widen its impact in 2013. Pensions is also going to keep me busy in the first half of the year, as we address the UK government’s unwarranted interference in the Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme.

Public sector reform will be another big issue in 2013. Adult health and care integration, procurement, regulation and community engagement legislation all have centralising elements to them. We need to make a strong case for local democracy in 2013, before it is lost as ministers gather more powers in Edinburgh.

The consequences of past centralisation will continue to blight Scotland in 2013. The Council Tax freeze and ring fencing will impact on the council budget setting early in the New Year. The new centralised police force comes into operation in April, saddled with the absurd police numbers target that takes police officers off the street to perform civilian roles. Disproportional spending cuts will hit colleges, along with the centralisation of what should be local educational provision.

The constitutional debate will grind on, I suspect with indifference being the reaction of most Scots until 2014. More work is needed on the devolution options this year if the No campaign is to offer a credible alternative to independence. The Yes campaign will continue to struggle if it doesn’t answer the many questions being asked and the early publication of the White Paper would help.

While we focus on Scottish issues we shouldn’t forget what is happening at Westminster. I have already mentioned the Public Service Pensions Bill and the Energy Bill will also impact on Scotland. Employment rights are to be undermined further together with health and safety laws that will lead to more death and injury at the workplace. However, the biggest issue will be the implementation of welfare reform. £Billions will be ripped out of the Scottish economy from people who least can afford it with local economies suffering the worst.

 
Finally, back to the weather. It would be good if governments across the world started to take climate change seriously. Emissions are rising, ice is melting, we will miss the 2C target and yet the response of our governments is to do little or nothing. George Monbiot highlights this well in today’s Guardian. But he also points to wider action that would be good New Year’s resolution for us all, “Governments care only as much as their citizens force them to care.”

So let’s work that much harder to make them care this year!

Scottish public sector employment

The latest Scottish workforce statistics show a further loss of jobs in the last year. However, it's worth looking at the numbers over a longer time span to analyse the impact since the financial crash and subsequent recession. This facilitates a view of the overall impact of austerity economics on public sector employment.


In the third quarter of 2012 there were 552,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland (581,300 including financial institutions), 22.3% of the total workforce. That’s a decrease of 8,700 (1.5%) since Q3 2011. However, if we go back to the public sector employment high point in 2008/9, we can see that a staggering 51,700 jobs have been lost in the Scottish public sector.

There is no real difference between reserved and devolved employment. Total employment in the devolved public sector has decreased from 491,700 in Q3 2011 to 486,000 in Q3 2012. That’s a cut of 5,700 (1.2%) over the year and 40,000 jobs lost since 2008.

When we dig a little deeper into these numbers it is clear than jobs have not been cut evenly across all sectors. The decrease in employment in the devolved public sector has been driven by a cut in local government employment. Council jobs decreased by 5,300 (1.9%) over the last year and 34,500 jobs have been lost in local government since the 2008 high point. Local government makes up 57.3% of workforce, but has taken 66.7% of the workforce cuts. Similarly, employment in further education colleges decreased by 900 (6%) in the last year and 2700 jobs have been lost since 2008/9.

Overall, there has been a 6.7% cut in devolved jobs since the 2008/9 high point. However, the local government workforce has been cut by 11% and FE colleges by 16%. This confirms the view that councils, colleges and their workers have taken the brunt of the cuts. This reflects the Scottish Government’s priorities for cuts.

Why does this matter? Well for a starter public services are largely delivered by staff - less staff mean fewer and poorer services. But it also has a wider economic impact. On the Treasury model 51,000 public sector job losses results in around 52,000 private sector job losses. This has been masked to a degree by underemployment, an issue I am pleased in see the Scottish Parliament Economy Committee is investigating in the New Year.

The wider impact on communities is also explained in UNISON’s Public Works campaign and in the STUC Better Way materials. I would also recommend Brian Ashcroft’s analysis at Scottish Economy Watch. He often digs below the surface of the raw data to explain the wider impact on the economy of job losses.

The main impact of these job losses has been poorer public services and a longer and deeper recession. Another example of how austerity economics is damaging Scotland. But it also tells the tale of Scottish Government priorities when implementing the ConDem cuts.

Why I will be marching tomorrow

Tomorrow I’ll be joining thousands of people marching through Glasgow for the STUC demo. I am particularly pleased to be marching from George Square, the traditional point of protest in Glasgow. Credit to Glasgow councillors for recognising that George Square is the people's place, not simply to be fenced off for commercial interests.

I am not marching because I think the ConDem coalition will suddenly realise the error of their ways and reverse the austerity economics that is throttling the Scottish economy. I do  believe that a large turnout tomorrow will show the government the extent of the opposition to their plans and give hope to those who are suffering the consequences of cuts to their services and jobs.

I also believe that marching is an important act of solidarity. It brings together the many people who campaign against the cuts in their own small way, in their own communities, acting as a reminder that they are part of a much bigger movement. This march is for them.

It is only one form of protest, but I do not accept the view that it has been eclipsed by other methods. It shows the millions who can't be there that there are many others who believe that there is a better way. That there is an alternative to mass unemployment and poverty wages - particularly for another lost generation of young people.

While I will be marching in Glasgow, the primary target for our protest will be the UK government because they are the driver of austerity economics. Even if the Scottish Government has made some poor choices over local government, police staff, colleges and others, they are only juggling the consequences.

I write this in Perth at the SNP conference. Almost every speaker, in almost every speech, tells us that the solution to austerity economics is independence. A Tory free Scotland if we just shake off the shackles of the Union. Sadly, what is usually missing, is any credible explanation of how that is going to happen. They will need to do much more if they are to convince us to vote 'yes' in the referendum. They may be helped if Labour fails to develop a vision of greater devolution and social justice, independent of the equally dire Better Together campaign.

And on the issue of solidarity, I will be marching for the same reasons as comrades in Belfast and London. Poverty with a kilt on is still poverty. I am not uncritical of Ed Miliband on several issues, but he has not taken the New Labour view that an opposition leader attending demos is making a tactical error. He understands that a Labour leader also has to demonstrate solidarity.

So that’s why I will be marching tomorrow. In solidarity with others who are suffering the consequences of austerity, and those who campaign against the ConDem government. It may not change anything directly, but it’s important, if nothing else for morale. Those marching alongside me may have a different vision of the future, but most of them will certainly be better than austerity.

The Street

Interesting experiment by Nick Robinson and the BBC with their programme The Street that Cut Everything.

The street was in Preston, but it could be pretty much any street in any town or city except for one thing. The residents of this street agreed to take part in a unique experiment. They agreed to live without all the services their council tax pays for - all, that is, except for schools for their children and the emergency services - and to let the BBC film how they got along or, more often, how they did not.

Many of the residents started from the premise that they paid too much Council Tax. However, when the 'invisible' services started to be withdrawn they soon realised how much we take these services for granted. They quickly worked out that the Council Tax they saved would not pay for private alternatives and so they had to do much for themselves. For a short period they managed to do some of this, but at a big cost in time and personal cash.

The other interesting factor was that while it did generate more community spirit in the street, it also resulted in real tensions, with neighbours quickly in real disputes. This reflects wider views as shown in an Ipsos Mori poll that showed 54% of people think that the big society is a good idea in principle but won’t work in practice, and as many as 57% also think it’s just an excuse for the government to save money by cutting back on public services. Like The Street, the poll also showed that most people have no clear view on the role of the state – they believe ‘people’ should get more involved, although they personally are too busy, and almost as many think it is up to the government anyway.



We did something similar to this last year with what we called 'A Day in the Life'. We followed one of my team, a young mum, for a day with a camera and noted all the public services she used. We were all surprised how many she came into contact with. See for yourself. We then did some calculations of what these services would cost if you had to buy them individually. Some examples are in the associated briefing. Schooling, security, private health care and refuse collection alone would bankrupt most citizens.

The key message from all this? Collective provision works. It not only binds us together as a community but it makes economic sense as well. Public Works!

March for the Alternative

Really amazing turnout yesterday at the TUC march for the alternative in London. Long day for most of the Scots who made the journey. 4:30am for those on our train and back by 1am, but everyone I spoke to felt the effort was worthwhile.

Our train arrived late, but we managed to squeeze into the march and got to Hyde Park in time for the main speeches. I thought all the speakers got it about right. Sharp message with a real focus on the alternative to the Con-Dem coalition policies that are wrecking the country. We then got a drink and as we made our way back to the tube for our train there were still people starting the march. That's nearly five hours later!

On the right hand side of the UNISON Scotland banner were a group of pensioners who decided to come when they were told their day centre opening days are to be cut. On the left a group of young children with their family protesting about cuts in their school. Far from the 'usual suspects' and this is before the really big cuts fully kick in.

I was pleasantly surprised how so many people understood that there is an alternative. In particular cracking down on the tax dodgers. Now we have to keep plugging away at every level until the millionaires in the Cabinet get the message that their tax dodging pals have to pay their fair share too.

Election Manifesto

UNISON Scotland will today launch our manifesto for the Scottish Elections in May.

In past years we would have pulled this document together from our bank of policy positions over a period of months. This time we decided to do it differently. We started our manifesto project some 18 months ago by identifying twelve core issues for UNISON members. Some broad issues and others more service specific. We encouraged activists to sign up to network groups on each issue and promoted a debate amongst members through our web site and in our publications. We have used the output from these groups to input into the political party manifesto processes, some being more open than others, and contributing to wider debate across civic society on these issues.

So the document we are publishing today (available on our website) is more the culmination of the process than a starting point.

As we say in the introduction, our vision for Scotland is different. Public services are part of the fabric of our society. An attack on those services is an attack, not on unions or workers, but on society itself. We set out a different approach, one that is rooted in our members deep understanding and commitment to those public services. 

We do nice photies as well!

Fair taxes

The Sunday Herald asked me to write a comment piece on taxation for today's paper. Taxation is a subject that politicians hate to talk about. However, in the current financial crisis we need to have a grown up debate about the relationship between quality public services and the tax needed to finance them.

And not just any old tax. Examples of fair taxation include:

£4.7bn could be raised every year by introducing a 50% tax rate on incomes over £100,000.

£14.9bn could be raised every year by using minimum tax rates to stop reliefs being used to disproportionately subsidise incomes over £100,000.


£20-30bn could be raised every year by introducing a Major Financial Transactions Tax (or "Robin Hood Tax‟) on UK financial institutions.
 
Fair taxation also has a redistributive impact, creating a more equal society. As we know from the work by Wilkinson and others - more equal societies do better in almost every way.

Better Way Demo

Excellent turn out on Saturday for the Better Way demonstration and rally in Edinburgh. We may not have the resources of the big business lobby but we do have the people. Thousands of people from trade unions, faith and community organisations marching along Princes Street to  shout that there is an alternative to cuts and economic misery.

There was a particularly strong turnout from UNISON branches. Members came from all over Scotland, many having an early start to get there. Events like this are important milestones in the campaign and they are valuable in building solidarity. That's our real strength and we are going to need all of that strength in the months ahead.

More cuts impact

More bad news this morning to demonstrate the impact public spending cuts will have on Scotland, even ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review next week.

The hard numbers come from the latest unemployment statistics that show Scotland is rising faster than any other part of the UK, with 13,000 more people joining the job queues over the summer- the equivalent of 140 a day. The rate of increase of people looking for work was double the next highest UK region.

Other data comes from the Scottish Chambers of Commerce  whose latest survey found that confidence weakened across all sectors of Scottish business in the third quarter. Optimism in key sectors including manufacturing plunged to levels last seen in the first quarter of 2009, when Scotland was deep in recession. These findings indicate that many of the private sector firms, who the UK government expect to lead the recovery, fear that the medicine prescribed to cure the public sector deficit may now tip the country back into recession. A view confirmed by the Chambers spokesperson on BBC radio this morning.

The Herald comments that the recovery in Scotland is starting to feel more like a recession as firms prepare for deep cuts in public spending to take a heavy toll on the private sector. While Scotland formally exited recession in the final quarter of 2009, official data show that the economy flatlined between January and March.

I am off to the SNP conference in Perth today. We will be highlighting some of these issues at our fringe meeting this evening.

Cuts Industry

It probably shouldn't surprise me but I never fail to be amazed at the ability of consultants and contractors to seek a business opportunity to profit from the public purse. Even during a period of cuts they relentlessly seek to divert scare public resources from service delivery to their own profit margins.

This is well illustrated as I flick through the Holyrood Magazine's Public Spending supplement. It starts with an editorial quoting various neo-liberal economists making the case for 'reform'. Apparently the cuts won't be that bad, its just the planned increases in expenditure that are being cut.  These people just don't live on the same planet as the rest of us, let alone public bodies wrestling with how to implement real cuts in services.

Then we have another neo-liberal guru (Tom Miers), who of course must be right because he has written a book. He churns out the old nonesense about the public sector 'crowding out' the private sector. Not a scrap of evidence is offered to justify this claim, but as the old adage goes, 'say it enough times......'.

Having set the scene for 'reform' we then get a series of articles and adverts from the consultants and contractors, who tell us how they can solve all our problems if only we will give them vast sums of money to install their software, reorganise etc. We are all heroically called upon to make 'a fundamental step change' or recognise that this is 'time for decisive action'. When the only action they really want is for public bodies to divert even more of their scarce resources into the pockets of these companies.

In fairness to Holyrood Magazine (unlike others) they do at least make an effort to provide some balance, including an article from me setting out our alternative approach. But you get the drift of the strategy.

This strategy reminds me of the quote attributed to the Roman writer Petronius in 210BC:
"We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."
Management consultants have clearly been around for a long time!

This was brought home to me today in a practical way when looking at a proposed reorganisation of a large public body in my organising team area. This organisation used to have centralised HR and finance functions. Some years ago, following the latest management thinking, they decentralised. Now in the face of massive cuts they are centralising again. Just about everyone in this organisation believes that in ten years time they will reorganise again in the other direction.

The losers in this process are the staff who face further uncertainty, the service users who face disruption, and the rest of us who pick up the bill. The 'heroic' consultants are laughing all the way to the bank.

Osborne and cuts

So, we are all in this together according to the Chancellor. As proof of this he is cutting £1bn from middle and high earners child benefit.

Sadly this is hugely cynical. The BBC's James Landale gives us a really good analysis of this approach. He says:

"But there will be squeals. Middle England will protest that it unfairly hits single-earner families hardest, that it acts as a disincentive to earn more, that it breaches the principle of universal benefits, that it is an attack on the family, that it is a breach of Mr Osborne's promise last year to "preserve" child benefit.

But the chancellor will not mind this. Why? Because the vocal middle-class anguish - led by vocal middle-class media types - will give him political cover for other cuts that will affect the less well off. This is only the start of a process that will see benefits and spending cut across the piece. Mr Osborne says we are all in this together and he has slaughtered one of welfare's sacred cows to prove it."

If we are really all in this together he would be clamping down on tax avoidance, increasing tax rates for the richest, introducing the Robin Hood Tax and taxing the bankers bonuses. That would bring in serious cash to the Treasury and do away with the need to cut the services we all rely on. But of course that would hit the Chancellor's millionaire pals. A few middle class squeals are a price worth paying to protect them.

ETUC Day of Action

We marked the European Trade Union Confederation’s (ETUC) day of action today with members gathering in the city centre to pull on the belt of a ‘real’ fat cat. The aim was to send a clear message that the public should not be left to pay the price for the bankers’ mistakes. And not just the bankers. The government should be closing down the tax avoidance scams that allow corporate Britain to avoid their tax responsibilities.

Despite the wet weather there was a good turn out of activists and plenty of media photographers for a very visual way of getting our message over. Plenty of fun with shoppers as well as our 'fat cat' played up to the part!

The stunt links with the launch of UNISON Scotland’s Tell A Pal initiative, which urges members to spread the word that there is a real alternative to the cuts and privatisation agenda. We handed out copies of the Tell A Pal leaflet which feature four key messages covering cuts in services, fair taxation and the economic impact of cuts on the local economy.

A range of materials to help members Tell A Pal are available on our website. The idea is to mobilise our members to spread the message using word of mouth and social media links.

More warnings on economic pain

More evidence this morning on the impact of cuts on the Scottish economy. This time from David Blanchflower, one of the very few economists who predicted the 2008/9 crisis.

He said in an interview in The Herald: “It will probably kill off 1.5 million jobs, but especially in places like Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-east (of England). That is where the jobs will get killed."

He mocked George Osborne's assertion that jobs lost in the public sector would be replaced by new employment in the private sector, and taking Glasgow as an example, he asked: “How will these jobs cut in the public sector suddenly appear in Glasgow? Who is going to come to Glasgow in the next few years? The private sector is going to step into Glasgow and create what? What are they going to create in Glasgow in the next four years to make up for what they have cut? It is cloud cuckoo land. It is laughable.”

He went to argue that the Coalition’s economic strategy is based on “a belief system, on dogma, rather than on a flexible way of responding to the economic data. I hold them responsible for this inept action – for the greatest macroeconomic mistake in 100 years.”

Strong language from someone who should be listened to because he has a credible record.

One of the challenges for Labour is how to respond to this analysis. It was an issue for the Scottish Policy Forum on Saturday when debating the policy programme for next year's elections. There are some in the Party who want to stick with the line at the General Election that our cuts would have been less than your cuts. Whilst that may be true, it is not a coherent economic strategy and more importantly - it failed.

What we need now is a strong articulation of an alternative economic strategy. Given the growing public recognition of the impact of cuts this also offers a credible political strategy. At UK level I would argue that that Ed Milliband has been the credible candidate most willing to break from the past. However, I give credit to Ed Balls whose Bloomberg speech was probably the best economic analysis given by any of the UK leadership candidates.

The challenge for Scottish Labour is set out this alternative in a Scottish context.

Economic impact of cuts

More evidence today of the economic impact the Con-Dem coalition's cuts strategy is having.  This time on the high street, with figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that sales fell by 0.5% in August, ending six months of growth. Year-on-year sales growth, which fell to 1.9% in August, was the worst since January, with non-food items badly hit.

John Lewis chairman Charlie Mayfield said: “For the remainder of this year and into 2011, we anticipate more challenging trading conditions, as higher taxes and public spending cuts begin to bite and household disposable incomes come under pressure.”

For low paid workers the squeeze on wages and services quickly impacts on the economy. This is highlighted in a new report by the Fair Pay Network that shows that more than one in five UK employees earns less than a "living wage". The report finds that since 1997, the poorest 10% of households have seen their weekly incomes fall by £9 a week. As real wages have fallen, the gap between what people earn and what they need has increasingly been filled by debt. The amount owed by UK households has tripled in the last decade.  As a result, the economy suffers from significant levels of wage inequality and people having to work long hours to meet their basic needs, it warns.

Some food for thought for Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs as they gather for their Autumn conference this weekend perhaps?