THE public sector in Scotland has grown by almost 50,000 jobs in the ten years since devolution, according to new figures.
The creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish administration has been accompanied by a rise of almost ten per cent in the size of the public sector to 579,600.
This represents a rise of 47,900 – or nine per cent.
In the last year alone
the public sector headcount has risen by 3,400.
Ministers have claimed repeatedly that much of the overall rise in numbers over the last few years has been because of more frontline staff – nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers – rather than extra managers and back-office bureaucrats.
Successive administrations have pledged to reduce the size of Scottish Government and its agencies.
And yesterday Finance Secretary John Swinney said that the detailed figures showed the success of Scottish Government efforts in simplifying public services while increasing the number of frontline staff.
He said that the number of NHS staff had gone up by 3,600, to 160,500, since early last year, and the number working in police and related services had risen by 800.
Meanwhile the number of people working in Scottish Government quangos and some other national bodies had fallen by 500 since 2007.
"We are making public services simpler, better co-ordinated and more responsive, crucial to support Scotland's economic recovery," he said.
But opposition parties warned last night that a burgeoning bureaucracy would be a drag on the success of the private sector.
Derek Brownlee, for the Tories, said there was a "valid distinction" between frontline and back-office staff but he warned that there had to be a positive move to shrink the public sector and grow the private sector, to help get Scotland out of recession.
He said: "I don't think anybody would suggest doing anything so radical as reduce the headcount in the middle of a recession but the government has to change its attitude so we can prepare to come out of recession.
"We have to reduce the size of the public sector and grow the private sector to get the wealth creators who are going to pay for all these new public sector jobs."
However, another change in the statistics has been the inclusion in the general public sector statistics of the bank workers from the part-nationalised banks.
Nearly 44,000 workers with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and Northern Rock in Scotland are now classed as public sector employees.
If these are taken into account, then that 579,600 public sector total goes up to 623,300, compared with 1.883 million in the private sector.
The public sector now accounts for about a quarter (24.9 per cent) of total employment if the banking jobs are included and 23.1 per cent if they are not.
The full article contains 488 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
