Edinburgh Sucks! | Executive to axe 760 jobs

Jack McConnell

Executive to axe 760 jobs - figures don’t add up.

By The Basa ⋅ April 14, 2005 ⋅

Useless First Minister The Scottish Executive today said they were going to slash 760 jobs through natural wastage and only one redundancy. The first minister jumped in and denied the news of the job cuts alongside Labour’s commitment to full employment was ironic.

details of the efficiency proposals from the Executive’s various departments and agencies emerged today. They include a loss of 130 jobs in the Crown Office and procurator fiscal service, up to 75 jobs in the new tourism network and possibly as many as 128 in fire control rooms if the number of control rooms is cut.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency could lose 35 posts, and Scottish Natural Heritage is listed as losing 72 posts. The biggest single cut is 604 posts as a result of centralising payroll and other support services in the NHS, saving £10m.

However a quick check of the figures do not add up. Babbling Jack McConnell said “These savings are going to fund 2700 new teachers in Scotland, 500 new special constables, the record number of police officers, the hundreds of new consultants we are committed to and the thousands of new nurses It is redirecting resources from the backroom to the front line - more jobs, but the right jobs.”

So that means that 760 jobs can fund 2,700 teachers and 500 special constables. How does this make sense. Let’s take the £10m saved from 604 posts ripped from the National Health service. Divide that 10,000,000 by just the 2,700 for the new teachers and you get a figure of £3,703.70 for each teacher.

Now I know that teachers are very poorly paid, but sureley to give them an annual salary of £3,703.70 is a bit of a rip off don’t you think Jack. It is about time that someone explained these figures for us.