Saturday 22 March 2008

One in four.


That's the proportion of Scotland's employment that is now acounted for by the public sector.

"In quarter 4 (Q4) 2007, there were 578,300 people employed in the public sector which is an increase of 45,400 (8.5 per cent) since 1999 but a decrease of 4,300 (0.7 per cent) since 2006 ... The public sector currently accounts for 22.8 per cent of employment in Scotland which has decreased from 23.1 per cent both in Q4 1999 and Q4 2006."

Mr Smith isn't a great believer in the old adage that "public is bad and private is good," anymore than he subscribes to the reverse, but does Scotland really need to have 22.8% of its emplyed accounted for by public servants and doesn't that put a major stumbling block in the path of any necessary reform of public services?

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