Scottish Referendum debate - watch with Mumsnet

Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of workers employed in the Public Sector in the UK, followed by Wales. I'm not sure why you'd aim for this situation to be honest- all it does is make the workforce dependent on government funding rather than attracting private industry.

As of Q1 2014, there were 545,200 people employed in the public sector in Scotland - 21% of the workforce. A proportion of these jobs will be lost and will not come back, because a Scotland will not need as big an infrastructure to deal with a population of 5.3million (8.2% of UK total), as opposed to delivering a fraction of services to a population of 64.1million.

Nor does public. I've read public sector business cases that would never have got past the ideas stage where I work. I'm not saying private is intrinsically better either - there are some businesses I am amazed carry on functioning.

I just don't agree with the point made that the public sector should expand. I do agree that Edinburgh has a much higher percentage of private education than the rest of the country. Presumably those who choose it, wherever they are, have good reasons.

And re education - having looked at the way the new exams are being introduced (or in many areas not being introduced) and the syllabus (the impact of WW1 on crofting? compulsory Scottish texts?) I'm not impressed.

Across Scotland only 4% of pupils are educated privately. Our system works much better than the chaos in the mixed English system.

The public sector is run much more like the private sector nowadays. It is a lot more efficient than it used to be. Private does not equal better.

I was actually just going to ask what other functions it was envisaged going into the public sector, but as councils had cropped up on the other thread that was top of my mind. Edinburgh council is however a wonderful example of public sector not necessarily being the best option.

I know quite a lot of people in Edinburgh who opt for private education as a family tradition, and others who do it because the hours and wrap-around care suit them (these are people at a higher level than I am job-wise, and generally two parents with 'high flyer' jobs). Fetters etc probably skew the figures a bit, but there are a lot of non boarders in Watsons, Heriots, Mary Erskine etc (gives up before listing them all). Our children don't go private, so I'm not sure on the split but I would have expected day pupils to outnumber boarders.

Just because Edinburgh city council is useless on so many fronts trams doesn't mean it is typical of the Scottish public sector.

Fwiw Edinburgh has lots of private school pupils because of the number of English syllabus boarding schools which have a high proportion of non Scots attending skewing the numbers eg fettes, merchiston.

Personally, I believe Scotland could do with a larger public sector as I believe generally things are better off in public rather than private ownership. There is already far less privatisation of schools/NHS in Scotland and I would hope that an iScotland could for example have far more state nurseries/childcare.

I may have a slightly skewed view of education as I live in Edinburgh where a significant proportion opt for private school, and I'm also aware of quite a few recent NHS contracts going to the private sector - but do you really believe public sector is intrinsically better? The council here have a record of shocking mid-management.

Aside from child care (which would have to be much more flexible than current state nursery) do you see any other sectors included in the expansion of the public sector? It strikes me as leading to a very unbalanced economy.

I stand corrected :)

However, if 31,000 of those are UK gov jobs presumably that sort of shrinks the %age. Of course some of the UKgov jobs could be lost.

I still think its much of a muchness. I'm sure there will be job losses and companies relocating. However I'm also sure there will be jobs created and new companies locating here.

I stand corrected :)

However, if 31,000 of those are UK gov jobs presumably that sort of shrinks the %age. Of course some of the UKgov jobs could be lost.

I still think its much of a muchness. I'm sure there will be job losses and companies relocating. However I'm also sure there will be jobs created and new companies locating here.

this says 21%, the lowest for years

this says twice as many work for UK gov rather than Scotland

Total stats I have are here: page 4 data table

21% scotland vs 18% UK. If Scotland was in line with UK that would be -78000 jobs.

18% scot vs 18.8% UK? Seems pretty similar?

"The devolved public sector is an important source of employment in Scotland.1 In March 2013, councils, the NHS and central government, including the Scottish Government, employed 443,900 full and part-time staff (headcount), representing 18 per cent of the total workforce in Scotland."

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=bx7pU4yYNoaI7AaL34HwDQ&url=www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/central/2013/nr_131128_public_sector_workforce.pdf&cd=9&ved=0CDgQFjAI&usg=AFQjCNFPdg-1NAuIHPoWIS7OtHgh32zYYA&sig2=USl_MYU_uRiQegijdLAt_Q" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=bx7pU4yYNoaI7AaL34HwDQ&url=www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/central/2013/nr_131128_public_sector_workforce.pdf&cd=9&ved=0CDgQFjAI&usg=AFQjCNFPdg-1NAuIHPoWIS7OtHgh32zYYA&sig2=USl_MYU_uRiQegijdLAt_Q triggers download

"For September 2013 there were 5.7 million people working in the public sector across the UK accounting for 18.8% of people in employment."
www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/december-2013/sty-public-sector-employment.html

I was comparing job statistics - I will link them if I can find them again. I wasn't talking about all public spending.

?

"When comparing the level of aggregate public spending across countries or over time, the standard approach is to compare the ratio of public spending to GDP. This allows the size of the public sector to be compared whilst controlling for the size of the economy.

In 2011/12, estimated public spending was equivalent to 42.7 per cent of GDP in Scotland. This is estimated to be lower than in both the UK as a whole (45.5 per cent), and the majority of EU-15 countries.

Over the period 2007/08 to 2011/12 as a whole, the ratio of public spending to GDP was estimated to be 43.0 per cent in Scotland, compared to 45.0 per cent in the UK."

From GERS
www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/11/9348/18

Ah, I see we're back to the Yes voters being wonderful selfless people line again.

Yes, large swathes of the public sector is separate, but we already have a bigger public sector than the UK as a whole. I really don't see how we can afford to have more than the roughly 1:4 ratio of public:private sector employees we have already. We're already overweight in public sector employees.

More state nurseries wouldn't really create jobs, it would just move them. And I'm pretty sure Swinney has said that money saved from Trident would be spent on the armed forces.

Large swathes of the public sector in Scotland is already independent of the rest of the uk so those jobs will stay in Scotland anyway. Police, courts, health, education, justice, prison service. Dh is a civil servant, his job as secure after a yes vote than it currently is. And let's face it with the further cuts the Tories are proposing who knows what's coming for the public sector.

I work for a FTSE100 company who have been in Scotland for 25 years and have recently reported they have no plans to change that regardless of the result I. September. They are actually moving jobs here from London as we speak. Personally for every doom and gloom report suggesting jobs will head south, there are companies saying they are staying. But it's very easy to be swayed by the threat to jobs.

I do know people who work in the finance sector who have been told their jobs are at risk, who are still voting yes, because they believe that is best for Scotland.

Personally, I believe Scotland could do with a larger public sector as I believe generally things are better off in public rather than private ownership. There is already far less privatisation of schools/NHS in Scotland and I would hope that an iScotland could for example have far more state nurseries/childcare.

If we had full control of things once things had settled down there are loads of places savings could be made without necessarily cutting. Far lower expense on defence (Inc Trident), not paying for big London centric projects like HS2 or Olympics. Welfare and taxation far easier to administer for 6 million rather than 60 million so savings there.

Things like a more robust welfare state could lead to overall savings as well.

For those saying the public sector jobs would be replaced -do you believe that Scotland would needed a bigger public sector, proportionally, than the UK as a whole does at present. If not, then we would have job losses as I mentioned above as we currently have 21% of the population employed in public sector compared to 18% overall for the UK, a difference representing 78000 jobs iirc.

If we would need a bigger public sector than the UK, how would we finance that?

It'll be nerve-wracking for sure Mollie. I'd like to think I could just to go to bed but I don't know.

Irnbru - my experience of being on the end of an anti English tirade was that it was aggressive & threatening. I know that the vast majority of Scots are not like that - if I thought they were I'd stop visiting, but having seen some of the comments from Yes supporters it's maybe more likely to happen at celebrations than elsewhere & not something I'd want to risk.

Other than that I'm not sure why I'd attend celebrations (other than more jobs for us), I think they'd be divisive & I would like the No's to win.

My initial comment was in response to the suggestion that tourism will be boosted by people flocking to join the celebrations. I don't believe this to be the case.

Definitely not going to have much sleep that night

Ooh, still reading. It is unlikely to be in the early hours as might have been the experience in previous elections.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I've found this (warning; it should open a PDF!) from the Electoral Management Board.

32 local areas to be counted immediately from 10pm closing.

Basically, 'It should be clear from this analysis that there can be no firm prediction of a time when the result will be known.'

Interestingly, though, The result of the referendum will only be officially declared when all 32 local totals have been provided to the CCO and she has accepted them as valid.... As counts are completed in each of the 32 areas and totals announced, there may be a point, when the remaining certified totals yet to be received from Counting Officers could not change the overall outcome, when the outcome will be known before the national declaration.

Numanoid you do realise that just replicating government jobs currently done for the UK for just iScotland is bad news as they an extra expense funded from iScotland taxpayers, so this will make things worse not better.

Oops - 7am sorry

No but Im guessing usual 10am-10pm vote? I'm guessing results won't be until well into the 19th especially as it is likely to be close so votes may end up being recounted etc, plus of course lots of observers may slow things down.