Scotland\u2019s largest trade union body has called for a major shift in how public services are delivered, warning that a sharp rise in outsourcing is draining billions from the public purse.<\/p>\n
The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) said new analysis suggests outsourcing across Scotland\u2019s local authorities has increased by as much as 40%, outpacing both inflation and spending on directly employed council staff.<\/p>\n
The figures, unveiled ahead of the STUC\u2019s annual congress in Dundee<\/a>, come alongside earlier union estimates that up to \u00a33 billion is being lost from Scotland\u2019s public sector in the form of private profit.<\/p>\n Read more<\/strong><\/p>\n Unionist voters could back the SNP to stop Reform, says polling expert<\/a> The organisation is now urging ministers to commit to a large-scale programme of \u201cinsourcing\u201d \u2014 bringing services back under public control \u2014 as part of what it describes as a wider plan to rebuild public services.<\/p>\n The STUC analysis \u2014 which draws on procurement data, FOI responses and finance statistics \u2014 suggests total procurement spending by local authorities has increased by 53.9% in the four years to 2023-24, with external spending on services rising by 37.9% and third-party payments increasing by 26.4% over a similar period.<\/p>\n All three of are higher than the increase in employee costs of 24.7%. The STUC says this “suggests spending on outsourcing is outstripping spending on wages”.<\/p>\n Even when inflation is taken into account, procurement spend has increased by 26.9% in the four years to 2023-24 while external spend on services has increased by 10.66% and third party payments by 1.41%.<\/p>\n A motion backed by the STUC General Council calls on the next Scottish Government<\/a> to \u201cditch the drain\u201d of outsourcing and instead invest in publicly delivered services through progressive taxation.<\/p>\n The call comes as most parties put shrinking the public sector at the heart of their plan to tackle the looming \u00a34.7 billion black hole in Scotland\u2019s public finances<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Scottish Government\u2019s own Public Service Reform Strategy, published in June 2025, promised to make public services \u201cefficient, effective, and fiscally sustainable by embedding a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration across the system\u201d.<\/p>\n The primary mechanism for this is a \u201cmanaged, downward workforce trajectory of 0.5% on average per annum to 2029\u201330\u201d.<\/p>\n Analysis by the think tank IPPR Scotland has suggested that as many as 20,000 public sector jobs could be lost by the end of the decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ministers have previously warned that, to meet their targets, some of the redundancies may need to be compulsory.<\/p>\n Roz Foyer, the STUC\u2019s general secretary<\/a>, said communities were facing \u201cthe grotesque scenario of paying more for their public services, for reduced quality\u201d while billions were \u201csiphoned out in pure profit for private shareholders\u201d.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cIf the next Government really wants to get to grips with so-called \u2018waste\u2019 from the public sector then it must come up with a plan for insourcing our outsourced public services.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s little wonder apathy and anger is rife throughout working-class areas in Scotland, with workers feeling the economy does not work for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more<\/strong><\/p>\n How the SNP ended up behind its own members on land reform<\/a> The STUC congress, which runs from today until Wednesday, is expected to hear from First Minister<\/a> John Swinney<\/a>, Scottish Labour<\/a> leader Anas Sarwar<\/a> and Scottish Greens<\/a> co-leader Gillian Mackay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland\u2019s largest trade union body has called for a major shift in how public services are delivered, warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,32057,14472,37122,712,11312,254637,20134,16,15],"class_list":["post-905457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotland","tag-britain","tag-great-britain","tag-outsourcing","tag-public-sector","tag-public-services","tag-scotland","tag-scottish-government","tag-scottish-trades-union-congress","tag-spending","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116433495449181851","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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