:00:27. > :00:30.Tonight on Newsnight Scotland. We may not have riots like Greece, and
:00:30. > :00:33.the public sector strike in Scotland will involve fewer people
:00:33. > :00:36.than in England, but how exactly do the public here view spending cuts
:00:36. > :00:39.and indeed how public services are run? We have an exclusive look at
:00:39. > :00:41.evidence which has gone to the Christie Commission on reform.Good
:00:41. > :00:45.evening. Many of Scotland's civil servants will join public sector
:00:45. > :00:48.workers in the rest of the UK on strike at the end of the month as
:00:48. > :00:51.new figures show the usual mixed picture as to how the economy is
:00:51. > :00:53.doing. The former STUC boss Campbell Christie will soon be
:00:53. > :00:56.issuing recommendations on how public services should deal with
:00:56. > :00:57.the cuts. Newsnight Scotland has been following one element of that
:00:57. > :01:01.debate. The accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers has
:01:01. > :01:06.conducted what it calls a citizen's jury and the results have gone to
:01:06. > :01:10.the Christie Commission. Here's Kenneth Macdonald.
:01:10. > :01:15.Edinburgh in April. There was an election on the way, but these
:01:15. > :01:20.people are looking at a longer timescale. 24 members of the public
:01:21. > :01:27.are sitting on judgment on our public services. We have heard from
:01:27. > :01:33.a range of experts, different types of expertise, about public services
:01:33. > :01:37.in Scotland. Our job was to deliberate on public services.
:01:37. > :01:44.has been quite hard going. The came here not knowing what to expect,
:01:44. > :01:52.but it has been very interesting. partnership between public...
:01:52. > :01:59.a response to the Christie Commission. It has been sent -- set
:01:59. > :02:06.up by the Scottish government to look at public services. The scale
:02:06. > :02:10.we have got is to be bold. That in itself is interesting. The
:02:10. > :02:15.commission is thinking about what needs to be happening without any
:02:15. > :02:21.constraints. So we are going to be bald. I would like to introduce our
:02:21. > :02:29.panel. The outcome of this citizen's jury is being submitted
:02:29. > :02:35.to the Christie enquiry by PwC. Price Waterhouse Coopers. We have
:02:35. > :02:43.got together a jury of 24 people who represent sections of the
:02:43. > :02:53.Scottish population to think about issues that they face as citizens
:02:53. > :03:03.in finding the public services they need and getting what they want.
:03:03. > :03:22.
:03:22. > :03:26.The jury is now in. It has The speakers came in to give us
:03:26. > :03:36.information, people from Audit Scotland, which was very good. Most
:03:36. > :03:39.
:03:39. > :03:47.people did not know how a -- how public finances were spared. --
:03:47. > :03:57.spent. The jurors were asked to prioritise public services.
:03:57. > :04:13.
:04:14. > :04:22.Essential, ideal, nice to have it. Things like free leisure services,
:04:22. > :04:32.it would be nice to have them, but in this day and age, if you have to
:04:32. > :04:35.
:04:35. > :04:40.The jury's findings also show how their opinion has shifted after
:04:40. > :04:50.they heard from expert witnesses. On the question of whether Scotland
:04:50. > :04:50.
:04:50. > :05:34.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 44 seconds
:05:34. > :05:44.But opinion has swung the other way What message should this process
:05:44. > :05:44.
:05:44. > :05:54.sent to the politicians? To listen to people. We are here for the long
:05:54. > :05:59.
:06:00. > :06:06.term. You have to think about the Politics is too important to be
:06:06. > :06:16.confined to polling day. An exercise like this can show that
:06:16. > :06:23.
:06:23. > :06:24.all citizens can have an influence on decision-making. I'm joined now
:06:24. > :06:27.by Paul Brewer of PriceWaterhouseCoopers who
:06:27. > :06:29.masterminded the citizen's jury process, and whom you may have
:06:29. > :06:32.glimpsed in the film there. John Downie is Public Affairs director
:06:32. > :06:42.of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation, and Dave
:06:42. > :06:46.
:06:46. > :06:49.Moxham is deputy General Secretary of the Scottish TUC.
:06:49. > :06:56.The Christie Commission, if you look at what they have gone through,
:06:56. > :06:59.they get a lot of information from organisations, but not a lot from
:07:00. > :07:05.customers of those organisations. We wanted to help them with the
:07:05. > :07:11.customer, the citizen's view. of the things that struck me about
:07:11. > :07:20.these results is that they start out in favour of public services,
:07:20. > :07:29.free public services, but at the end of the day, support has gone
:07:29. > :07:31.down. But two weeks after the exercise, the SNP won the election.
:07:31. > :07:40.I would wonder how it representative that was meant to
:07:40. > :07:44.be? I think the extent to which parties were differentiated on that
:07:44. > :07:50.issue was something for voters to consider. But a number of these
:07:50. > :07:55.measures has support from more than one party. What it did bring out is
:07:55. > :08:05.that once people understood where money was being spent, they became
:08:05. > :08:06.
:08:06. > :08:10.much more focused and confident about their priorities. But one of
:08:10. > :08:17.the things that did seem to come out is if you say to people, for
:08:17. > :08:26.example, do you think that over 60s should get three bus passes? They
:08:26. > :08:36.think it is a great idea. But when you say it is that for this, they
:08:36. > :08:37.
:08:37. > :08:44.drop the free bus passes. People commented that it changes behaviour
:08:44. > :08:53.and demand. Is that something they wanted to see? If you are
:08:53. > :08:58.increasing demand, you cannot spend money on other things. It gave some
:08:58. > :09:08.flavour of how the cost of some of the services... Something that
:09:08. > :09:16.struck me was that people said they wanted a public services that they
:09:16. > :09:20.could be proud of. They also meant that in a dividing sense. Prior to
:09:20. > :09:28.be in Scotland, proud to be in Britain, public services that
:09:28. > :09:36.almost gave them a sense of identity. -- a proud to be. Yes,
:09:36. > :09:40.there were a lot of values underlying public services. And
:09:40. > :09:47.people realised that they are very important to them. Are you
:09:47. > :09:57.impressed by this? Yes, what it shows is what we have been saying
:09:57. > :09:57.
:09:58. > :10:05.for a while. The agenda needs to move to a greater role for the
:10:05. > :10:08.third sector, to involve people. One thing I would pick upon is that
:10:08. > :10:15.we talk about things being free, but they are not three. Somebody
:10:15. > :10:22.has got to pay for it. Those people who are now retired, they once were
:10:22. > :10:32.taxpayers. When you put it to people, the choice, people are not
:10:32. > :10:41.stupid, they can make decisions and prioritise. But Paul Brewer did put
:10:41. > :10:48.it to people. That is what I mean, prioritising what we need, the
:10:48. > :10:54.health service, the vulnerable in society. Let's not treat the
:10:54. > :10:59.symptoms, let's treat the causes. That is what I took from the report.
:10:59. > :11:09.People are realising they cannot afford free prescriptions and free
:11:09. > :11:18.bus passes. Nice to have it. But people are saying what priorities
:11:18. > :11:22.they want to have it. What our members of trade unions in the
:11:22. > :11:30.public sector feeling? There are big strikes planned down south,
:11:30. > :11:34.largely over changes to the pensions sector. But there seems to
:11:34. > :11:43.be less militancy in Scotland at the moment. I think people are
:11:43. > :11:50.feeling angry and I think they are very concerned about the future of
:11:50. > :11:55.services that they deliver. Very specifically, we have a situation
:11:55. > :12:00.where the education unions are likely to strike over pensions. I
:12:00. > :12:10.would be highly surprised if the feeling was not as strong in
:12:10. > :12:16.
:12:16. > :12:24.Scotland after September. You think it is the issue of pensions...?
:12:24. > :12:29.think that it is strongly felt. Adding 3.5% year-on-year increase
:12:29. > :12:39.for pensions is just too much for people to bear. Yes, I think it is
:12:39. > :12:45.
:12:45. > :12:52.How long do you think union members in Scotland in the public services
:12:52. > :13:01.will accept pay freezes, an effective pay cut given the rate of
:13:01. > :13:05.inflation? We know it is the share and will peak next year. You can
:13:05. > :13:10.present it as a social contract, it is a fine balance, which way will
:13:10. > :13:15.it go? It is difficult to predict but what we do know is whether it
:13:15. > :13:20.is cuts in public services or cuts in pay, we have not really seen
:13:20. > :13:23.them yet. There has been some element of a freeze and we are
:13:23. > :13:29.beginning to see it in terms of public services but this is the tip
:13:29. > :13:33.of the iceberg in terms of what we are expecting. This is a factor,
:13:33. > :13:37.Paul Brewer, the context of this discussion you were having is not
:13:37. > :13:42.let us sit down in the extract and have a discussion about how we run
:13:42. > :13:47.public services, it is that we know there are massive cuts coming down
:13:47. > :13:52.the line. As Dave Moxham said, perhaps we are not quite aware that
:13:52. > :13:56.it has not really started yet. and we asked people to say what
:13:56. > :14:01.they thought was the mood of Scotland at the beginning. It was
:14:01. > :14:07.really quite fearful, a lot of negative views coming across. Part
:14:07. > :14:11.of that was that nobody could give you a sense of what these cuts are.
:14:11. > :14:17.They can see them looming. When the auditor general explain to them and
:14:17. > :14:23.showed them how public spending had moved through the period since
:14:23. > :14:28.devolution, growing very rapidly, the cuts, while very substantial,
:14:28. > :14:35.taking back to wheel expenditure levels of about 2007. That
:14:35. > :14:40.surprised people. They thought of them back to 1997. Just being able
:14:40. > :14:44.to size what the issue was I think gay people a bit more confidence to
:14:44. > :14:54.understand that there is still an envelope with which you can
:14:54. > :14:59.
:14:59. > :15:03.prioritise thing. -- things. Much of what Campbell Christie has been
:15:04. > :15:08.expected to deal with is an Armageddon situation. He has been
:15:08. > :15:12.told that public services will not get back to their current level for
:15:12. > :15:16.15 years. But it is not incompatible with what Paul Brewer
:15:16. > :15:21.has just said. It could be that the level of public spending does not
:15:21. > :15:29.fall below 2000 and several levels but it will still take 15 or 20
:15:29. > :15:32.years to get back to the levels they were at and there peak.
:15:32. > :15:41.Another feature that came through was that people were very willing
:15:41. > :15:46.to think long-term. Looking at means of prevention off social
:15:46. > :15:52.issues that soak up a lot of public funding, it means that you have to
:15:52. > :15:56.think of it more long term. People were saying, can we get public
:15:56. > :16:01.services to be able to operate outside the political cycle, plan
:16:01. > :16:08.for the long term, invest in prevention, and there is an
:16:08. > :16:14.appetite for that. John Downie, do you think there's an assumption
:16:14. > :16:18.that we know what people think but they do not necessarily think that?
:16:18. > :16:25.I remember an interview with Annabel Goldie where I was talking
:16:25. > :16:30.about tuition fees and suggesting that all the other parties knew it
:16:30. > :16:34.was not popular. She pointed out that there was about beer pole
:16:34. > :16:38.appearing in one of the newspapers show that it was popular. That is
:16:38. > :16:48.one of the things about the findings of Paul Brewer, that when
:16:48. > :16:49.
:16:49. > :16:54.you explain to people, it appeared, what was it? It was that nice to
:16:54. > :16:59.have. And they said they would be prepared to consider tuition fees.
:16:59. > :17:04.I think that is one of the strongest messages from the report
:17:04. > :17:10.that when you put stark choices to people about the demographic
:17:10. > :17:15.challenge that Scott and changes -- faces, at such as care for all
:17:15. > :17:20.people, moving through that longer term approach and treating the
:17:20. > :17:24.courses rather than the symptoms, people can actually make choices.
:17:24. > :17:32.This is the debate we probably should have had during the election
:17:32. > :17:36.campaign. That is the debate... Are we going to have to make his
:17:36. > :17:42.decision because they were not really debated in the election, it
:17:42. > :17:45.was like a bidding war to give more free things to people. And the fact
:17:45. > :17:50.that there was cross-party support for some of these allegedly free
:17:50. > :17:55.measures took some of the debate out of this. The Christie
:17:55. > :17:58.Commission is looking at how public services are delivered and I think
:17:58. > :18:04.there was an appetite from people just to get more factual
:18:04. > :18:14.information. Given that there is a pay freeze for at least two years,
:18:14. > :18:19.and given that pay makes up a very high proportion of the public
:18:19. > :18:29.sector, if you just keep cutting people's pay into ethnic comedy
:18:29. > :18:30.
:18:30. > :18:35.really need to face up to these other issues? -- indefinitely.
:18:35. > :18:41.do. We have to face up to these challenges. It is not something
:18:41. > :18:45.that over the next four years we can avoid. It is interesting that
:18:45. > :18:50.people were prepared, when they saw of the public sector finances, to
:18:50. > :18:55.pay more. That is not a perception that the politicians are taking
:18:55. > :18:58.from the voters. People realise that if we want the care services,
:18:58. > :19:03.if we want education and the health service, the money to think about
:19:03. > :19:10.how we pundit. Is that something you would contemplate up the free
:19:10. > :19:14.Fred? Perhaps not just pay more for things like pain for prescriptions,
:19:14. > :19:20.but people are being asked to pay for services that they heart used
:19:20. > :19:24.to getting for free? We're one of the few organisations that has
:19:24. > :19:29.consistently argued that the council tax Nice to rise to obviate
:19:29. > :19:33.the kind of individual charging that your love our eyes have. We
:19:33. > :19:38.are concerned that the Scottish government has not faced up to his
:19:38. > :19:43.responsibilities in relation to council tax and the number of
:19:43. > :19:46.measures that is has had at his disposal and has not used. Opinion
:19:46. > :19:55.polls Balterley that is an up unpopular thing to do but it would
:19:55. > :19:59.be the right thing to do. -- will tell you. People said they would
:19:59. > :20:08.want money to be shifted from lower priorities first and then look at
:20:08. > :20:11.whether they should have the device to have,. We are sitting here on
:20:11. > :20:18.the assumption that the Christie Commission will produce these
:20:18. > :20:21.radical proposals. Will it? I think it will. I think there is a clear
:20:21. > :20:28.agenda there for the means of delivery of public services to be
:20:28. > :20:35.sorted out. I can there are high expectations but I don't know they
:20:35. > :20:45.can deliver. Long term, yes, but I do not know that the short term.
:20:45. > :20:48.
:20:48. > :20:54.look at tomorrow's front pages. A construction company has pulled
:20:54. > :21:00.local bidding for the contract. Britain walks out is about the
:21:00. > :21:10.strikes. Hundreds of thousands of public-sector employees striking on
:21:10. > :21:11.