The Scottish Conservatives have unveiled proposals for wide-ranging cuts to civil-service headcount and administrative efficiencies for the public sector in their manifesto for next month’s Holyrood elections.
However independent think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies questioned the credibility of the suggestion that back-office savings could fund two major tax “giveaways” proposed by the party.
The Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto pledges to return numbers of devolved administration officials back to 2016 levels, following a decade in which the party said numbers had risen by “almost 80%”. It also commits to reducing the number of quangos in Scotland by one-quarter, based on a current figure of 130.
The party said it would seek to protect frontline jobs across the public sector as part of the drive. The party said savings would instead be sought from back-office and administrative roles, as well as by targeting “public-sector fat cats failing to deliver for taxpayers”.
Part of the party’s proposals include a review of the value for money of public-sector exit packages.
Savings sought in the Scottish Conservatives’ manifesto aim to offset the cost of flagship plans that would represent significant cuts to income tax and business rates, estimated to cost £3.7bn a year by 2031-32.
David Phillips, head of devolved and local government finance at the IFS, said other additional spending set out in the manifesto would take the cost of “new measures” to around £6bn a year by the end of the parliament.
“These are big tax cuts and spending increases – equivalent to almost 10% of current forecasts for Scottish Government day-to-day spending in 2031,” he said.
Phillips said that the “almost £4bn a year” the Scottish Conservatives expect to realise from various measures to reduce back-office, administration, and civil service costs was a “very large” figure relative to existing budgets.
“Given the scale and nature of these measures, the money that will be saved is not only less certain than the cost of the tax and spending increases it is meant to help fund,” he said. “There is also no evidence that there is scope for ‘efficiencies’ of such a big scale that would avoid adverse effects on front-line services.”
Phillips said that while the manifesto may be costed on paper, “whether it would survive contact with reality is far from clear”.
“Giveaways on the scale proposed by the Scottish Conservatives cannot credibly be funded largely through back-office and administrative savings,” he said. “In addition to the cuts to benefits set out in the manifesto, there would likely need to be substantial cutbacks to either the range or quality of some services used by households and businesses too.”
An IFS analysis said that the existing Scottish Spending Review already assumed big savings in both NHS board budgets and cross-government administration costs in order to protect front-line services.
It said it is “not credible” that additional savings of the scale proposed by the Scottish Conservatives could be made without cuts to the range and quality of services provided to the residents of Scotland.
Elsewhere in their manifesto, the Scottish Conservatives propose a further range of measures that could impact civil servants – and future civil servants.
They include reversing a cut to working hours introduced by the governing Scottish National Party and a new “mandate” for office-working, designed to improve productivity.
The Scottish Conservatives would also introduce a pledge requiring all civil servants to confirm they will be neutral on the question of independence when carrying out their work for the Scottish Government.
An additional proposal is a change in recruitment rules that would stop vacancies in the civil service being advertised as requiring a university degree. The Scottish Conservatives said the move was designed to actively encourage young people apply for civil service roles.
Scotland will head to the polls on 7 May. The Ipsos Scotland Political Pulse survey of 1,000 people, published yesterday, shows the SNP is currently expected to retain its grip on power.
The survey framed the Scottish Green Party as on track to become Holyrood’s second biggest political force, followed by Reform UK, Labour and – in fifth place – the Scottish Conservatives.