Worth a look. This is an interesting article for a lot of reasons. I have
the feeling that this guy Swinney is what the non-conservative majority in
Canada should be saying and doing. Especially the second to last paragraph.
====
Scotland goes its own way on spending and economic growth
As finance secretary in the Scottish government, John Swinney has reduced
public spending more slowly than the UK as a whole with positive results
Peter Hetherington
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 September 2011 17.17 BST
>From no compulsory redundancies among the 280,000 staff under the direct
control of the Scottish government to no marketisation in the NHS (as well
as free prescriptions) and the continuation of the education maintenance
allowance, Scotland's divergence from Westminster appears to be increasing
by the week.
While house-building in England has fallen to its lowest level since the
1920s, Scotland's supply is meeting demand under a regime that generally
dictates better design standards. Equally remarkable on the social housing
front, the country's local authorities are now building as many council
houses annually 1,000 as its southern neighbour 10 times larger,
following the relaxation of controls restricting borrowing.
As a senior minister with a wider portfolio than any comparable Whitehall
department chancellor, industry, energy and local government supremo
rolled into one John Swinney happily produces statistics to show how his
leftish leanings have so far helped Scotland withstand the worst excesses of
George Osborne's savage spending squeeze.
While Osborne began slashing last year, Swinney took a noticeably more
cautious path, which has helped boost housing and other activity.
"I decided not to reduce public spending as fast as it was done in the UK,"
he says proudly. "What's the upshot of that? UK construction employment has
fallen by about 2% over the year construction employment in Scotland has
grown by about 11%. My point is well evidenced
more people are [therefore]
paying taxes, have spending power in the shops and all the rest of it, as a
consequence of us taking those steps."
But payback time is finally emerging. "I've had to confront some of the
consequences of that now [and am] having to reduce public spending to take
account of that," Swinney confesses as he prepares an extremely tough budget
this month that will finally acknowledge the reality of the Osborne axe.
For the past eight years, capital spending in Scotland has been running at
around £3.5bn annually. Now he has to cut that by a third, leaving the
country as he tactfully puts it "£1bn adrift". The seemingly unflappable
Swinney displays a little uneasiness.
Officially known as cabinet secretary for finance and sustainable
development in a Scottish National party (SNP) government, Swinney has two
deputy ministers, covering business and energy, and local government and
planning respectively.
A former strategic planner with a large Edinburgh insurer and, subsequently,
a business and economic development consultant, Swinney, in his mid 40s, is
proof that there is political life after leadership. He led the SNP for four
years, until 2004 replacing Alex Salmond only to stand down for
Salmond's second-coming.
As finance secretary, he is the principle link between the Scottish and UK
government. He describes his relationship with the Treasury as "courteous"
and "professional" and, particularly, its chief secretary fellow Scot
Danny Alexander who he meets regularly. The ideological divide between
Alexander, Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey, and Swinney, MSP for Perthshire North and happy to be labelled
a social democrat is profound. "I deal with him a lot," Swinney
volunteers. "Sometimes we reach agreement, sometimes we can't [but] I find
the political approach he's taking extraordinary given his political roots.
Any time I looked at the Liberals in my political life they were the radical
Highland party."
Now, he laments, they are partners in an ideologically-driven rightwing
government, pursuing a deficit-reduction strategy hitting the weakest
hardest and, finally, forcing the Scottish executive to accept a cuts
package against its better judgment.
Politicians and local councils across the border, in north-east England,
might look in wonder at Scotland's ability so far to withstand the worst
excesses of the Osborne/Alexander cutbacks thanks, in part, to a
relatively generous Westminster funding settlement of £28bn-plus a year. But
Swinney undoubtedly speaks for many in England when he questions the
Treasury's balance between slashing spending on the one hand and encouraging
growth on the other. "The danger for the UK government, running the economy
for the past 16 months, is that they've tipped the balance too hard in
favour of consolidation when, with a modest realignment of capital spending,
they could be motivating a higher level of growth," he insists.
Which takes us back to the limited options for capital spending available
for Swinney to keep people in work and to encourage that growth. How can he
maintain some demand in the Scottish economy? First, he insists, it's about
jobs. "Take, for example, some of our approaches to public sector
employment," he responds. "I've said it is going to fall over the course of
the next few years, but I'm trying to sustain as much as I can because I
think it's a contributor towards the economy ... to give an assurance to
public sector workers, to give them a bit more confidence about their living
standards and lifestyles, that the government will not go down the route of
compulsory redundancies. You can opt to be redundant voluntary severance
but you won't have that compulsion."
That is one of the subjects he has just been discussing with several council
leaders at St Andrew's House, the administrative headquarters of the
Scottish executive in Edinburgh. While Swinney cannot directly control
Scotland's 32 councils although they are in the fourth year of a
centrally-influenced council tax "freeze" he is encouraging them to follow
suit. Collectively, Scottish councils have a 200,000-plus workforce and he
is pleased to say one of them the Scottish borders council has taken his
lead. "They've come to the same agreement with the trade unions
and got
some flexibilities from them in exchange for the agreement. That's a
sensible way forward."
Swinney rejects criticism surrounding what some see as the ultimate irony of
Scottish home rule; namely, that the SNP government has centralist instincts
at odds with local democracy. The SNP's plan for a national Scottish police
service, abolishing eight forces in the process, is put forward as a case in
point. The body representing councils, the Convention of Scottish Local
Authorities, is deeply uneasy, accusing the government of riding roughshod
over local democracy.
Over-centralist? "No, I don't agree with that," counters Swinney. "When we
came into government in 2007 [as a minority administration initially] you
had a relationship between national and local government that I would best
describe as prescriptive. We pursued an approach to give local government
more discretion
and in so doing we came to a 'concordat', removing many of
the constraints on local authority funding."
The other contentious area is an over-enthusiasm for major road schemes
notably a big extension of the M74 motorway ploughing through the East End
of Glasgow at the expense of public transport. Similarly, plans for a new
Forth Road bridge, costing £1.4bn, on which work is due to start later this
year, are proving controversial, with critics arguing the money would be
better spent on public transport.
That said, the Scottish government's commitment to a fully-regulated
planning system embracing a national framework for the whole country
contrasts starkly with the deregulated, market-led regime being pursued in
England and now alarming groups from the National Trust to amenity societies
and large councils fearful of a developer free-for-all.
Swinney's passionate advocacy of planning might be music to the ears of the
National Trust. Of the Scottish system, he explains: "Essentially, it's
structured around having a clear idea at national level of what is
acceptable. We put that into a national planning framework big picture
stuff about what the country is going to look like, a spatial plan. It gives
people a clarity 'don't come along to this part of the country and try to
build, say, a major industrial plant because it's not going to happen.
Business wants certainty, whether it's a 'yes' or 'no'."
And, from Swinney's perspective, people want economic certainty. Scottish
cities did not experience England's wave of urban disorder last month.
Swinney finds it all unfathomable. But he adds
passionately: "If I step aside from that, what am I trying to do as a
government minister in Scotland? I'm trying to create a society that gives
opportunity and hope to the citizens of our country and if that contributes
to creating social cohesion in our communities then I think that's a job
well done." He adds: "We spend a lot of our time trying to make sure that
young people have the opportunity to gain access to some form of education,
training and fulfilling a purpose."
But with the UK government largely determining funding, while broadly
setting economic policy, it will be no easy task for Scotland to maintain a
distinctly different course from a Westminster government in the years
ahead.
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