Scotland’s frontline workers hit hardest by jobless rise

Teachers have borne the brunt of job cuts in the Scottish public sector, while the number of civil servants continues to rise, new unemployment figures reveal.

The Scottish government’s latest unemployment statistics show that there has been a sharp increase in the number of jobless, with the heaviest cuts falling on frontline services in local government — principally teachers and social services.

Opposition parties and unions reacted angrily to the figures, accusing ministers of hiding behind the statistics.

The number of unemployment benefit claimants in Scotland rose in August by 2,200 to 132,900. A wider unemployment count, including people seeking work but not claiming benefits, rose by 11,000 in the last three months to 187,000 or 7 per cent of the workforce.

Although the SNP government has cut the number of quangos from 199 to 162, the number working for them is static at 14,100. Its own civil servant numbers have risen in the past year from 17,000 to 17,500. At the same time, the number of people working for local authorities, excluding police and firefighters, has fallen by 9,700 to 274,300. The number of teachers has fallen by 700 and other education staff working for councils are down by 1,000.

Iain Gray, the Scottish Labour leader, said: “The fact social work numbers are plummeting should be of great concern to the First Minister. Without the staff on the front line our child protection system will not be effective.”

Matt Smith, Secretary of Unison in Scotland, said social workers were dealing with extra case loads as a result of the death of the toddler Brandon Muir, in Dundee.

“Staff are facing far greater pressures than ever before. We would argue the case for more staff to deal with the major priorities we have in child protection and also for caring for the elderly and other vulnerable groups.”

Jeremy Purvis the Liberal Democrat MSP accused John Swinney, the SNP Finance Secretary, of “hiding behind” the fall in teachers and social workers, adding: “He knows he has presided over massive increases in civil servants and quango jobs. He should be ashamed of this.”

But Mr Swinney defended the figures, saying: “With a recession and a cut to Scotland’s budget, every part of the public sector — national and local — must deliver maximum value for the public purse. Our focus is on delivering high quality, frontline services for the end user and we are delivering on that vital objective, with a welcome rise in frontline NHS and police personnel.”

Ken Cunningham, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland, which represents head teachers and other school managers, said: “Across the country on the back of the financial crisis, local authorities are scaling down staffing budgets for teachers and classroom assistants very significantly. Budgets are being squeezed beyond the bounds of delivering what we have been able to deliver up to now.”

Yesterday’s unemployment figures showed that while police numbers are up by 1,400 to 24,700 and the number of firefighters is unchanged at 5,800, the number of other council workers has fallen by 4,400.

The fall is offset by a rise in the number of people working for the NHS — up by 3,700 to 161,400. Overall, there are now 502,000 people working for the Scottish government, its agencies and councils, a reduction of 4,400 in the past year.

Jim Mather, the Scottish Enterprise Minister, called on Westminster to bring forward money from future budgets to support investment in infrastructure.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, said that the UK Government’s priority was to help maintain employment wherever possible. “We are 100 per cent committed to not losing a generation of young Scots to long-term unemployment.”

However, Brian Ashcroft, of the Fraser of Allander Institute, gave warning that unemployment would continue rising. August’s unemployment figures were in line with the institute’s forecast that 186,800 people would be out of work by mid-June, he said. The institute’s last forecast was that the jobless total would rise to 215,000 by the middle of next year.

Professor Ashcroft said: “These are very depressing numbers. We expect unemployment to rise for some time even if weak economic growth is now resuming.” But because the labour market was more flexible now, he did not expect that the dole queues would be as long as the 350,000 jobless of the 1980s recession.