The full scale of the SNP Government’s financial mismanagement has been exposed as it was revealed that civil servants have been banned from travelling between Glasgow and Edinburgh in order to save money. But Ministers were still allowed to swan about abroad on the taxpayer dime.
New documents show that Shona Robison ordered massive cutbacks in a bid to fund bumper public sector pay deals, which included all non-essential spend being paused. This affected the likes of prisons, health, support for Ukrainian refugees, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Water.
The Finance Secretary failed to outline a public sector pay policy last year, resulting in deals being struck with unions which pay staff at a much higher rate than the UK. The SNP Executive did not have the funds to pay for this, meaning that £500m had to be removed from the budget in-year.
According to the Times, tight new financial restraints were introduced by Ms Robison, which included a ban on civil servants getting trains between Scotland’s two biggest cities. However, foreign trips were still funded, including Acting Net Zero Secretary Gillian Martin flying out to New York for Climate Week.
READ MORE: SNP’s Treasury spokesman says £3.4bn boost for Holyrood budget is still NOT ENOUGH
In August, the Finance Secretary told Cabinet Ministers that money would only be allowed to be spent if it was essential to meet legal requirements or prevent an economic crash. The “emergency spending controls” led to a recruitment freeze and cuts to budgets.
However, it has now emerged that there have been similar controls introduced in the last two years as well as the SNP have struggled financially. Departments were sent a letter from Permanent Secretary John-Paul Marks which said that the government’s financial position was “extremely precarious.”
(Image: Andrew Cowan-Pool/Getty Images)
Stringent recruitment controls and cuts to travel, overtime and subsistence were all introduced, as well as asking civil servants not to travel between Glasgow and Edinburgh which costs about £17 off peak and £31 at peak times with marketing and entertaining budgets were wiped out.
Ms Robison told Ministers to review any spending under £1m and cancel all projects that were not “truly essential” with a monthly update on approved or rejected projects requested. They were also asked to defer any big spends until the following financial year.
Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth was asked to see if they could delay payments to universities until the academic year, while Justice Secretary Angela Constance was asked to return underspend from prison projects. Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville was told to reassess the cost of both the Ukrainian resettlement and social security programmes.
Craig Hoy, the Scottish Conservative finance spokesman, said the SNP government had shown itself to be “incapable” of imposing effective spending controls. He said: “This correspondence proves that the SNP simply use the UK government as an all-purpose justification for any gap in their own finances.
“Shona Robison was desperately trying to plug the holes long before that excuse was wheeled out, because it was already obvious that the nationalists’ mismanagement had blown their budget to pieces. The worst thing is that it’s had no effect at all.”
A government spokesman said: “The Scottish government made clear the challenges it faced in 2023-24 due to high inflation, increased pay expectations, economic uncertainty and the cost of living crisis. A robust set of processes and controls was put in place to manage the financial position, so as much money as possible was available to improves the lives of the people of Scotland.”
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