Spending Watchdogs

I notice that the former Auditor General for Scotland - Bob Black, who retired from his post last year - has waded into the debate over public spending with a warning about the tough choices  facing future Scottish governments in these harsh economic times.

Now Bob Black has been around the block a few times - so you would think that he knows what he's talking about.

Because prior to becoming Auditor General in February 2000, Bob was the top banana at the Accounts Commission - the public spending watchdog for local  councils in Scotland.

Before that Bob was a council chief executive - first with the old Stirling District Council and then Tayside Regional Council - before it was abolished in 1996.

Yet I have a pretty low opinion of these public spending watchdogs - to my mind they are all bark and no bite.

I don't recall them saying anything about the scandalous use of public money in South Lanarkshire - over the incredibly generous early retirement arrangements for senior council officials, for example.

An even more striking example is the introduction of a new pay package for teachers in Scotland in 2001 - which became known as the McCrone Agreement and cost the public purse an eye-watering £800 million a year.

Regular readers of the blog site will note that this is around the same time (2001/02) as a major Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement was due to be implemented by local councils in Scotland.

The main beneficiaries of the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement would have been the lowest paid councils workers in Scotland - predominantly women doing a variety of essential jobs such as carers, cooks, cleaners, clerical workers, classroom assistants and nursery workers.

Now the cost of implementing the Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement would have been considerably less than the £800 million a year set aside for Scottish teachers - via the McCrone Agreement.

Yet the Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement was never implemented - the cupboard was bare according to the council employers (dominated by the Labour Party at the time, of course) - but I never heard any of the public spending watchdogs saying:

"Hold on a minute, this doesn't seem fair. We can't have the teachers jumping to the front of the queue. We need to take a balanced approach that is fair to everyone - because money doesn't grow on trees, you know."

No, not a bit of it - so I take what Bob Black has to say with a big pinch of salt.

Of course there's a need for a honest debate about spending public money - and the best use of scarce resources - that was true back in 2001/02 and it's still true now.

But some of us have long memories - and heads that don't button up the back.