:00:13. > :00:16.been passed through the UK Border Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: has
:00:16. > :00:21.the Christie Commission on reforming public services come up
:00:21. > :00:25.with any useful reforms to public services? This one-stop shop for
:00:25. > :00:29.services and West Lothian is one possible model for things to come.
:00:29. > :00:34.We will be speaking to the commission's chairman, the finance
:00:34. > :00:38.secretary and some experts. Public-service bodies are to join
:00:38. > :00:43.together to eliminate waste. The Christie Commission says that
:00:43. > :00:47.occasion across agencies needs to be cut out. The focus should be on
:00:47. > :00:51.early prevention of problems to prevent huge costs down the line.
:00:51. > :00:57.We now look at one area where they say at better co-operation is
:00:57. > :01:00.getting results. This is pooling resources West
:01:00. > :01:05.Lothian style: sharing information and working together across the
:01:05. > :01:12.agencies. This means avoiding doing the job twice and a more
:01:12. > :01:16.streamlined operation. Previously, the police have gone in deal with
:01:16. > :01:20.one problem, social services to deal with another, perhaps
:01:20. > :01:25.environmental wardens would deal with yet another. Now, we have a
:01:25. > :01:29.combined response to it. Through analytical products, we can
:01:29. > :01:33.actually decide who is the best unit, or the best person, to deal
:01:33. > :01:37.with the problem. We can actually deal with it from a prevention
:01:37. > :01:42.point of view so we can tackle the causes of crime. The one-stop shop
:01:42. > :01:47.approach is working for local people here too. It is better if
:01:47. > :01:52.they are all on the one building. All we need to do is phone up that
:01:52. > :01:58.place and you get everyone you want, social work or whoever else is
:01:58. > :02:03.there. Community service and stuff like that. Everything is there in
:02:03. > :02:10.the one building. Instead of one building here, one building down
:02:10. > :02:16.their... The centre in West Lothian is home to seven partner agencies:
:02:16. > :02:22.the council, NHS Odeon, the fire service, the police, the courts and
:02:22. > :02:26.the Procurator Fiscal. All are based here. The centre believes it
:02:26. > :02:31.is the most ambitious public sector partnership of its kind in the UK.
:02:31. > :02:36.The population here in West Lothian is set to grow by almost 15% by
:02:37. > :02:40.2018. This puts council services under even more pressure. The idea
:02:40. > :02:45.here is that by bringing everyone together under one roof, they will
:02:45. > :02:50.be able to provide more efficient and better services. What this
:02:50. > :02:54.enables us to do is to shift focus and the front line services. At
:02:54. > :02:58.this time of economic restraint, it is very important for us. What
:02:58. > :03:02.we're looking to do is to shift resources up steam so people get
:03:02. > :03:07.help when the need it most, and we're looking to target resources
:03:07. > :03:09.again. What is most important is the quality of service we are
:03:09. > :03:15.delivering and a recognition that their working together as a
:03:15. > :03:20.partnership we get more. That is absolutely vital. In terms of hard
:03:20. > :03:25.results are many examples of new working better? With anti-social
:03:25. > :03:33.behaviour, particularly, vandalism in the last year has dropped by
:03:33. > :03:39.almost 28%. Our overall crime has reduced by 19%. Those are excellent
:03:39. > :03:43.results and that is just through working in partnership. Meanwhile,
:03:43. > :03:47.in Glasgow, tackling problems before the store up for the future.
:03:47. > :03:52.This project is focused on helping young people into work before it is
:03:52. > :03:55.too late. The commission supports this idea: that prevention is
:03:55. > :04:05.better than cure, and believes money should be spent now to make
:04:05. > :04:11.bigger savings in the future. jobs are aimed at 18 plus. You need
:04:11. > :04:16.experience and they really do struggle. At about the age of 17,
:04:16. > :04:19.there is hardly anything for them. I have been looking on line for
:04:19. > :04:27.different jobs. I have filled in applications but nobody has got
:04:27. > :04:31.back to me. In 2009 and left school. I went on a painting and decorating
:04:31. > :04:33.course but after that I have just been trying to get the job.
:04:33. > :04:37.Christie Commission enthusiastically supports these
:04:37. > :04:41.models, but will the whole of the public sector are put -- adopt this
:04:41. > :04:44.approach. There is widespread support for today's report, but
:04:44. > :04:51.some question why they are still talking and not just getting on
:04:51. > :04:55.with reforms. The government is commissioning reports but they do
:04:55. > :04:59.not actually go anywhere. Quite recently, there was the Beveridge
:04:59. > :05:07.Report. I hope that does not happen to this which I think is generally
:05:07. > :05:12.very good. The Christie Commission says this is a once in a generation
:05:12. > :05:16.opportunity to tackle huge dilemmas. If we do not do it now, the writing
:05:16. > :05:22.is on the wall that the problems we are storing up for the future will
:05:22. > :05:27.be financially insurmountable. A little earlier I spoke to the
:05:27. > :05:32.chair of the commission, Campbell Christie. I asked him, when it
:05:32. > :05:39.comes to one of the report with my big ideas, prevention, what would a
:05:39. > :05:46.practical example of that be? Prevention is not a new idea at all.
:05:46. > :05:50.It has been on the agenda for a very long paid of time and people
:05:50. > :05:57.recognise that if you can identify eight, for example, difficult
:05:57. > :06:04.families, and in sure you are able to be with them to help parenting
:06:04. > :06:09.or whatever else, you can create an environment where up instead of
:06:09. > :06:16.having people who drop out of school and end up worse drug or
:06:16. > :06:20.alcohol problems, if you identify areas where preventative action can
:06:20. > :06:26.produce better results than the long term. That is the sort of
:06:26. > :06:35.thing that is meant by preventative action. I understand that, but to
:06:35. > :06:40.be honest, this is Maugham and apple pie stuff. We're saying we
:06:40. > :06:45.should do this and if you do... were supposed to be producing some
:06:45. > :06:49.sort a blueprint for public service reform. What I did not see is this
:06:49. > :06:57.general idea is that you have outlined translated into something
:06:57. > :07:00.other than just an idea. One idea you have is that services for the
:07:00. > :07:05.elderly could be hived off into some agency that is part of the
:07:05. > :07:13.health service... We have not said that. We have said there should be
:07:13. > :07:20.action taken to integrate health and social care. We have not said
:07:20. > :07:23.where it should be, how it should be. We have said that at the moment
:07:23. > :07:31.it operates through Community Planning partnerships or with the
:07:31. > :07:36.health boards and local authorities. Other agencies are involved. That
:07:36. > :07:42.is there, it is not working very well, but it can be made to work
:07:42. > :07:48.better if funding is pooled. It then provides an opportunity to
:07:48. > :07:53.ensure that people who need care and able to get that care.
:07:53. > :07:57.other thing that struck me reading this was not so much what you said,
:07:57. > :08:02.but the question she did not ask. Close to the beginning of the
:08:02. > :08:07.document, you say that since devolution, any quality in Scotland
:08:07. > :08:11.has either not got any better or in many cases got worse. In the next
:08:11. > :08:17.paragraph, you point out that public spending in Scotland over
:08:17. > :08:21.the same period has increased by 60%, an enormous increase. Isn't it
:08:21. > :08:24.a rather obvious question to say, if those two things are true,
:08:24. > :08:32.doesn't it show that throwing public money at problems is not a
:08:32. > :08:36.good way of dealing with them? shows that if you use public
:08:36. > :08:44.expenditure to provide different and more and more things, it
:08:44. > :08:49.dissipates. I'm sorry, but if there has been a 60% increase in public
:08:50. > :08:53.spending since evolution and inequality has gotten worse, that
:08:53. > :09:00.would seem to be something verging on a national scandal. Where has
:09:00. > :09:04.the money gone? You don't provide any analysis at all. What we have
:09:04. > :09:10.said is that action has not been taken in the right place at the
:09:11. > :09:15.right time. That is what preventative measures about. You
:09:15. > :09:19.spend what you require in it ad is that will provide an opportunity
:09:19. > :09:27.for good outcomes. We have not measured outcomes, we have measured
:09:27. > :09:37.out pit. What we have said is that... You are concentrating on
:09:37. > :09:40.
:09:40. > :09:43.one area, there is a whole range of... The position is that we know
:09:43. > :09:47.that our report is based on evidence we have had from people
:09:47. > :09:52.who are actually working on site delivering most of the things we
:09:52. > :09:59.have been talking about. It is not being done very much but it is
:09:59. > :10:08.being done successfully. Things like empowering individuals and
:10:08. > :10:15.communities so that it is not at top-down arrangement. These are all
:10:15. > :10:20.just slogans. It is not slogans. Let me as you simple question. You
:10:20. > :10:24.called Alex Salmond's Council of economic advisers making the point
:10:24. > :10:29.that public spending per capita on health and education is roughly 10%
:10:29. > :10:35.more in Scotland than in other areas of the UK. There is no
:10:35. > :10:38.examination in your report, and this is the poster be about
:10:38. > :10:41.fundamentally delivering public services, you don't ask why
:10:41. > :10:47.Scotland is more expensive? What is happening elsewhere that is
:10:47. > :10:53.different? We were asked to identify in the medium to long term,
:10:53. > :10:58.how we could sustain public services in Scotland of a quality
:10:58. > :11:05.that would allow us to resolve some of those problems that we have
:11:05. > :11:08.talked about. Don't you think asking why health cost 10% more in
:11:08. > :11:18.Scotland per capita than a dozen the rest of the UK might be a
:11:18. > :11:19.
:11:19. > :11:25.rather fruitful question to ask? we didn't. Scotland, geographically,
:11:25. > :11:29.is separate from England. There are all sorts of arguments as to why it
:11:29. > :11:32.might cost more. That was not what we were doing. We were looking at
:11:32. > :11:36.how we could deliver public services in Scotland and a way that
:11:36. > :11:46.could be sustainable, and in a way that could tackle the problems that
:11:46. > :11:46.
:11:46. > :11:51.were identified. How can we do that in a positive and constructive way?
:11:51. > :11:56.That has a remit and what we have been doing. You have a chapter
:11:56. > :12:04.called improving performance and reducing costs. It contains not one
:12:04. > :12:07.single figure on either improving performance for reducing costs. It
:12:07. > :12:13.is like reading a philosophy journal. There is nothing specific
:12:13. > :12:19.in it at all. Didn't you have economists who could have costed
:12:19. > :12:23.some of these ideas out? You can costed until the cows come home one
:12:24. > :12:29.not resolve it. The trouble is that we have not addressed some of the
:12:29. > :12:34.real issues that people have in relation to public services: how
:12:34. > :12:43.they are delivered and how the impact communities. Maybe cost is
:12:43. > :12:46.not the best way of doing it? He also talk about evidence-based
:12:46. > :12:52.policy by you do not produce evidence for anything you say.
:12:52. > :12:56.There are a few individual stories... We visited many areas of
:12:56. > :13:01.Scotland and met hundreds of people. We talk to them about how public
:13:01. > :13:04.services are being delivered in their areas. How they could get
:13:04. > :13:09.better value out of the loving those services and we looked at
:13:09. > :13:13.that, and we have said, if we can transfer the sort of arrangements
:13:13. > :13:17.more generally into how the deliver public services, how can we give
:13:17. > :13:20.communities more power? How can they make sure people are able to
:13:20. > :13:30.stay out of hospital and stay out of care homes? How can we do that
:13:30. > :13:32.
:13:32. > :13:36.I will be talking to John Swinney about this. If there was one thing
:13:36. > :13:42.in your report you want him to do right now, what would it be?
:13:42. > :13:52.would want him to agree that we strengthen the Community Planning
:13:52. > :13:52.
:13:52. > :13:58.partnerships, that we should have all of the sources providing public
:13:58. > :14:01.resources together, they should be funded on the basis that funding
:14:01. > :14:05.for health and the local authority is integrated to get good value for
:14:05. > :14:11.money. That would be an important thing for him to do. Thank you very
:14:11. > :14:16.much indeed. I am joined now from Dundee by the
:14:16. > :14:21.Finance Secretary John Swinney. Could you hear that? Yes, I heard
:14:21. > :14:24.the whole interview. Would you agree with the last point that he
:14:24. > :14:30.said about Community Planning partnerships, that is the thing he
:14:30. > :14:33.would like you to do immediately? Two things about that, the first is
:14:33. > :14:37.that the focus in the Community Planning partnerships is an
:14:37. > :14:41.approach that the government has driven forward in the last few
:14:41. > :14:46.years, so I think they welcome the sentiment that Campbell Christie
:14:46. > :14:52.has identified. The second point is that in the budget this year we
:14:52. > :14:56.have put in place for the first time a change for and which was
:14:56. > :14:59.designed to ensure greater integration of particularly health
:14:59. > :15:03.and community and social care services at local level, which is
:15:03. > :15:07.the concept of pooling budgets which Campbell Christie was
:15:07. > :15:10.referring to. I think we have started in that direction but it is
:15:10. > :15:14.important the government considers carefully all of the points raised
:15:14. > :15:20.by the Christie Commission in that respect. I certainly think we will
:15:20. > :15:24.do that. Was there anything in this report you did not know? I think
:15:24. > :15:29.what the report does, I don't think it opens up a new direction of
:15:29. > :15:35.travel, but what I think it does do... I think Campbell Christie
:15:35. > :15:39.believes extremely strongly that it does. I think the direction of
:15:39. > :15:43.travel that the report talks about is one which the government is
:15:43. > :15:47.broadly comfortable with, and it is the broad direction we are going in.
:15:47. > :15:51.What is new about the report, I think, is that it essentially
:15:51. > :15:57.crystallises the challenge that we face with dealing with a shrinking
:15:57. > :16:01.volume of public expenditure, a rise in demand for public services,
:16:02. > :16:06.and the need to improve the outcome as we deliver for citizens in our
:16:06. > :16:09.country, and I think the report shapes that clearly from all of us
:16:09. > :16:14.involved in politics in Scotland today, and that is the important
:16:14. > :16:18.challenge the government will respond to. Does it really out like
:16:18. > :16:24.any plans for fundamental reform? If it does, what exactly is the
:16:24. > :16:28.fundamental reform you will make as a result of it? The government will
:16:28. > :16:33.look at the Christie Commission's report and also look at that within
:16:33. > :16:38.the context of the approach we take to our spending review in the
:16:38. > :16:45.autumn. I am clear in my mind and the Cabinet is clear on this as
:16:45. > :16:49.well, that we have to embrace a more significant agenda of public
:16:49. > :16:52.sector reform to ensure that we can meet the demands that will be
:16:52. > :16:57.placed on public services in the years to come. A lot of reforms we
:16:57. > :17:02.have made over the last four years, particularly in relation to
:17:02. > :17:05.entrenching the responsibilities of the Community Planning partnerships,
:17:05. > :17:10.requiring public sector bodies to work closely together, the example
:17:10. > :17:15.you have had tonight, the West Lothian examples, a concrete
:17:15. > :17:19.example that has come about of joint working at local level is to
:17:19. > :17:26.take that Agenda further forward for the improvements that people
:17:26. > :17:31.were quite. I am curious, everyone says John Sweeney, all of the
:17:31. > :17:35.issues about cuts were addressed to you in the election campaign --
:17:35. > :17:40.John Swinney. The decisions he has made so far will not get us through
:17:40. > :17:45.because of the cuts. Is any of that true? What you have done is frozen
:17:45. > :17:48.public sector pay, and that is a huge proportion of the Budget. You
:17:48. > :17:52.do not replace vacancies when they come up unless it is something
:17:52. > :17:58.important. Do you need to do something fundamental other than
:17:58. > :18:01.that, and it so, what? I think I have made the point before that the
:18:01. > :18:04.largest reduction in public spending to that we have got to
:18:05. > :18:08.face in all of the financial years for which we have information is
:18:08. > :18:15.the one for which I have set a budget, the current financial year.
:18:15. > :18:19.In that sense, this is where I took exception to folk saying I was
:18:19. > :18:22.dodging the question in the election campaign, because in
:18:22. > :18:28.February I set a budget that reduced public expenditure in
:18:28. > :18:34.Scotland by �1.3 billion. I did not enjoy it... The point is, your
:18:34. > :18:38.argument would be you faced the big choices, you cannot keep cutting
:18:38. > :18:44.pay in real terms indefinitely, but eventually the financial situation
:18:44. > :18:48.will get better, but there might be a desirability in Campbell
:18:48. > :18:52.Christie's terms looking at the Democratic sin -- demographics in
:18:52. > :18:56.the long term, but you would argue you have dealt with it? I would
:18:56. > :19:00.contend that I have dealt with the stiffest year of public spending
:19:00. > :19:04.reductions so far. Some of the measures have been difficult
:19:04. > :19:07.because they involve freezing public sector pay and reducing
:19:07. > :19:12.significantly some of the funding support that we can make available
:19:12. > :19:20.for certain programmes and projects. In the medium term, and by that I
:19:20. > :19:24.mean the year's 2013-14 and onwards, we will face some of the pressures
:19:24. > :19:28.of increasing demand without saleability to freeze public-sector
:19:28. > :19:35.pay because you cannot freeze public-sector pay forever, and also
:19:35. > :19:39.budgets that are not rising as fast as they were in the period of which
:19:39. > :19:43.the Christie Commission is critical about at the start of the decade.
:19:43. > :19:47.What we have to focus on is the substantial choices, and that is
:19:47. > :19:52.what the government will do. Have you said you do not want to freeze
:19:52. > :19:57.public sector pay beyond 20 getting? What I am saying is you
:19:57. > :20:01.cannot freeze public-sector pay forever -- be on the 2013. You seem
:20:01. > :20:07.to be implying in your last statement that you would not be
:20:07. > :20:11.freezing public sector pay beyond the next two years. I think a two
:20:11. > :20:17.year freeze in public sector pay is the likely course we will take.
:20:17. > :20:20.do not want to extend that? because I think we have got to
:20:20. > :20:24.undertake some of the reconfiguration of public services
:20:24. > :20:27.to make sure we can meet the demands and expectations placed
:20:27. > :20:33.upon as. John Sweeney, thank you for joining us.
:20:33. > :20:37.I am joined by John McLaren for the Centre for Public Policy for
:20:37. > :20:43.regions, Rachel Cackett from the Royal Society of Nursing, and the
:20:43. > :20:47.assistant editor of the Scott men - - the Scotsman, Peter Meg Munn. I
:20:47. > :20:52.want to get your reaction to reading this report -- Peter
:20:52. > :20:56.McMahon. My general reaction is that it offers a very strong
:20:56. > :21:01.challenge to the government in terms of asking for
:21:01. > :21:11.transformational change in areas like emphasising preventive
:21:11. > :21:12.
:21:12. > :21:18.measures. Except isn't that apple pipe in this world? If it is not,
:21:18. > :21:23.it is a huge challenge. If it can be pushed forward and the
:21:23. > :21:26.government reacts to it, and he is saying it does not open a new
:21:26. > :21:30.direction of travel, and if it does not I think the document has failed
:21:30. > :21:34.because the purpose of the document is to say that we do have to
:21:34. > :21:37.emphasise preventive measures or do something fairly radical in a
:21:37. > :21:42.number of areas to get through without a declining quality of
:21:42. > :21:45.public services. Rachel, what did you make of its? What the document
:21:45. > :21:50.does is distil together a lot of the conversations that have been
:21:50. > :21:54.going on for some time in Scotland, and there was a lot we were pleased
:21:54. > :21:58.to see in there, but I agree with John that if you went across the
:21:58. > :22:02.public sector you would have a fair consensus that something different
:22:02. > :22:06.needs to happen. The detail is in what that will look like if you are
:22:06. > :22:13.a member of the public, patient, member of staff in the NHS, for
:22:13. > :22:16.example. Will you find any answers in that document? I think it gives
:22:16. > :22:21.useful direction of travel. For instance, it sets out criteria
:22:21. > :22:26.against which to look at whether change should go ahead or not. That
:22:26. > :22:30.is useful to have. I think the focus on outcomes and prevented did
:22:30. > :22:40.spend, they are not necessarily new, we had a parliamentary inquiry on
:22:40. > :22:45.that. To take your own area, health care, the very idea of measuring
:22:45. > :22:51.outcomes is itself ambiguous. What are you measuring? There has been
:22:52. > :22:54.consistent criticism of the NHS in Scotland that it measures lots of
:22:54. > :23:04.things but cannot answer sensible questions like, is it more
:23:04. > :23:08.
:23:08. > :23:13.efficient to do an operation in hospital X or Hospital wind. -- Y.
:23:13. > :23:15.If nobody knows what the outcomes are, it is difficult. One of the
:23:15. > :23:20.recommendations remade is that we need to be clear what we are
:23:20. > :23:24.measuring. There are areas in the health service where outcomes are
:23:24. > :23:27.measured successfully, which tends to be in the acute sector for
:23:28. > :23:32.things like specific operations like hip or knee replacement. It is
:23:32. > :23:36.harder to say that we can measure success the lid on a national basis
:23:36. > :23:39.outcomes in other areas, so if we are going to go down this route we
:23:39. > :23:44.need to be clear what we are measuring so staff are clear what
:23:44. > :23:54.we are delivering and patients are clear what they should expect.
:23:54. > :23:57.
:23:57. > :24:07.Peter, judging by the Scotsman this morning, you did not enjoy this?
:24:07. > :24:09.
:24:09. > :24:14.does sound like it is out of a script from the Thick Of It. John
:24:14. > :24:18.Swinney said direction of travel twice, as did one of my colleagues.
:24:18. > :24:23.If you read this report and try to see what it is recommending, there
:24:23. > :24:28.is not much there in the substance. You ask the question and you, don't
:24:28. > :24:36.we know all of this? We have had the Beveridge Report, a great piece
:24:36. > :24:42.of work which outlined some solutions. In case the viewers get
:24:42. > :24:48.can be used, I did not make a beverage, but Lord Beveridge! -- I
:24:48. > :24:54.did not mean a beverage. And the report did produce a good report
:24:54. > :24:58.for where savings could be made. Susan Deakin did a report on early
:24:58. > :25:03.years, we have had reports on procurement. We have reports and
:25:03. > :25:08.commissions coming out of our ears, and what I find disappointing about
:25:08. > :25:11.this is that it did not address what to do, it just spoke a lot
:25:11. > :25:16.about these wonderful concepts of how everybody should work together
:25:16. > :25:20.and we should have a joined-up government, but did not spell out,
:25:20. > :25:23.specifically, for somebody who needs care for their elderly
:25:23. > :25:28.relative or a young person who need extra tuition and help from
:25:28. > :25:37.teachers, it did not say how this applies to real people and how to
:25:37. > :25:43.make things better. Isn't that the problem? Governments can interpret
:25:43. > :25:49.is anyway a night. You may have just seen -- you may have seen John
:25:49. > :25:53.Swinney interpreted as he wanted to, so what is the point? That could be
:25:53. > :25:57.a problem. I am guessing the committee saw their role as not
:25:58. > :26:02.doing a fundamental review of each area, I think they thought that
:26:02. > :26:07.should be done at a later time. as Peter said, I cannot remember
:26:07. > :26:13.how many reports I have read produced by the SNP administration
:26:13. > :26:20.and the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat administration going on
:26:20. > :26:25.about prevention rather than cure, how we are breaking things down. It
:26:25. > :26:29.is a strange world of language that exists in this report and nowhere
:26:29. > :26:32.else. There have been thousands of them are. But I don't think they
:26:32. > :26:38.have been taken in the context of the current budget cuts, unlike the
:26:38. > :26:43.UK where they have radically looked at the NHS, education, both higher
:26:43. > :26:47.and schools, law and order. Whether you like the result or not, they
:26:47. > :26:51.have radically looked at them and I do not think we have done that in
:26:51. > :26:56.Scotland yet. It is when you start to do that that we may come up with
:26:56. > :26:59.more radical solutions. My worry is we may not do that, we may just
:26:59. > :27:06.have efficiency savings that are going to make everything all right
:27:06. > :27:11.and that will be across the board cuts. You reduce public sector pay
:27:11. > :27:16.and do not replace lost posts. John Swinney was suggesting he needs to
:27:16. > :27:22.come up with something else by 2013, that pay cuts would do for now but
:27:22. > :27:28.it was not -- was not an indefinite thing. The biggest cut was this
:27:28. > :27:33.financial year. However, a large part of accommodating that was
:27:33. > :27:40.things that might have to be, something that will have to be
:27:40. > :27:47.reserved -- the first, like Scottish Water, so you have not
:27:47. > :27:54.only to find that money but the same again. Her you have to find a
:27:54. > :27:59.wage settlement... On the wages, you are in the NHS, your members
:27:59. > :28:07.are working in it, everyone seems to have been reasonably happy to
:28:07. > :28:12.accept a pay freeze, effectively a pay cut of 4% or more. Will people
:28:12. > :28:17.be happy to put up with that for more than a year, do you think?
:28:17. > :28:21.agreement we made was to two years, but what John has been saying and
:28:21. > :28:25.what you mentioned earlier was the other cuts around that, so if you
:28:25. > :28:33.have a mess that is now in a position of being a pay freeze --
:28:33. > :28:38.if you have a nurse, you mentioned vacancy freezes coming in as a way
:28:38. > :28:42.of making short-term gains, because that is the way that we are seeing
:28:42. > :28:46.savings being made now in the short term. The difficulty comes when you
:28:46. > :28:51.put that alongside the Christie Commission report, which is talking
:28:51. > :28:54.about long-term preventive spend, about benefits being realised way
:28:54. > :28:59.into the future. The risk is by taking the approach we are doing
:28:59. > :29:03.now is we made a lot of small cuts in a lot of areas, we freeze
:29:04. > :29:08.vacancies, do not replace posts, but the impact means that the more
:29:08. > :29:11.that we do that the less likely we are to be able to make the
:29:11. > :29:15.transformational change that people are talking about for these long-
:29:15. > :29:20.term gains that deal with the intractable problem we seem to have
:29:20. > :29:25.about inequality it. We are running out of time, but isn't that a
:29:25. > :29:30.point? Of fears comparison, British industry uses devaluation every
:29:30. > :29:36.time there is a crisis, you do not reform the strictures of the
:29:36. > :29:40.industry because you devalue. You can keep salami-slicing, but do not
:29:40. > :29:43.produce better public services? think that is right, and you could
:29:43. > :29:47.said the benefit of the Christie Commission is they have thrown down
:29:48. > :29:53.the gauntlet to ministers and say, we make certain recommendations and
:29:53. > :29:56.have all of these reports they can look at, so the challenge has to be
:29:56. > :30:00.for John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond to look
:30:00. > :30:02.at these reports and decide, do they want to do that, do they want
:30:02. > :30:08.to do the salami-slicing or do something more radical that might
:30:08. > :30:17.be better for the long-term teacher? Thank you very much indeed.
:30:17. > :30:20.A brief look at tomorrow's front The Scotsman and the Times's
:30:20. > :30:30.leading on Scottish universities. That is all we have time for
:30:30. > :30:35.
:30:35. > :30:39.tonight. I am back tomorrow, until Pretty chilly outside tonight with
:30:39. > :30:43.largely clear skies. A fresh start to their stay morning, it will be
:30:43. > :30:47.another day where the sun will shine in most places but there will
:30:47. > :30:52.be a fair few showers to chase around, particularly in the north-
:30:52. > :30:58.east England with some intense downpours with the risk of a flash
:30:58. > :31:02.of lightning and rumble of thunder. Some heavy showers, too, against --
:31:02. > :31:07.across East Anglia. The South West of England will see some showers
:31:07. > :31:11.mostly in the morning. By the afternoon, many places here find
:31:11. > :31:16.and bright. The same across Wales, some showers in the morning but
:31:16. > :31:20.most places having a fine end to the day. Scattered showers will
:31:20. > :31:23.come in their across Northern Ireland throughout the day. Showers
:31:23. > :31:27.across North West Scotland throughout, they will tend to die
:31:27. > :31:36.out in the Glasgow area but for Eastern's: Some heavy showers
:31:36. > :31:39.possible in the afternoon. -- but for East and areas. Friday
:31:39. > :31:44.generally a dry and bright day. Still some cloud bubbling up
:31:44. > :31:49.through the day, so a small chance of a shower across the extreme east