More evidence of spendthrift ways

Day upon day comes more evidence that while the Scottish Government's issues dire warnings about the impending cuts to come from Westminster it is doing little or nothing to control its own spending.

Yesterday came another example as finance secretary John Swinney was forced to admit that spending on agency workers for the core Scottish government increased from 6 million to 9.4m between 2008-9 and 2009-10.

Mr Swinney's protestation that overall, the number of agency workers used by the Scottish administration had reduced from 987 to 840, had a hollow ring to it as this admission clearly shows that fewer workers cost more taxpayers' money.

The minister further asserted this was mainly because, over the two year period, fewer agency workers were used to cover administrative and support roles, but more were used as "interim managers". Most people will think the last thing the Scottish Government needs is yet more managers.

It is true the increased spending is small by comparison to the 42 billion cut which it is alleged will befall Scotland over the next 16 years, but if the Scottish Government cannot control these cost, which it should be able to do, how confident can we be it can tackle the difficult financial times ahead? The answer, regrettably, is not very.