I MET a social worker friend of mine the other day. I hadn’t seen her for some time but knew her when she first became a social worker — enthusiastic, committed, determined to make the difference that she no doubt has.

But she told me that she’d had it with local authority social work. She is working a 70-hour week most weeks just to get through the work. She’s exhausted, has no work-life balance and is losing touch with friends because she is always too tired to socialise.

And I thought to myself — this is the hidden impact of austerity in Scotland — of the cuts to public services. The unseen consequences of asking so many public service workers to do more with less. And we’re ripe for exploitation since so many of us choose to work in public services because we want to help people — whether in social work like my friend and I, or in the myriad of other key professions and roles covered by the umbrella “public services.”