THE Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) has warned the SNP government that its proposals for public-sector reform are “dangerous,” with workers having “little reason to believe” that services will improve.

The STUC submission to the Scottish Parliament’s public service reform committee argues that workforce reductions are “not helpful or necessary.”

It highlighted that more than 62,000 public-sector roles have been lost in Scotland since 2008, with government plans set to destroy a further 20,000 by 2031, even as demand for services rises and satisfaction with the NHS has fallen from 64 per cent in 2019 to 22 per cent in 2024.

The trade union federation instead called instead for an end to the “scandal” of outsourcing, citing a 40 per cent rise in the practice across Scotland’s local authorities over the past five years.

Research commissioned by the STUC estimates that between £2 billion and £3bn of devolved external spending goes to profit extraction by private companies every year.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “The Scottish government, as did all politicians during the election, fell into the murky, false assumption that to balance the books, public-sector workers had to be the ones to pay for it with their jobs.

“We simply will not accept that falsehood.”

She said that the “way forward” for the government was to “work with our movement, reinstating their ‘no compulsory redundancies’ approach, whilst realising the obvious truth that cutting 20,000 jobs cannot lead to better outcomes for working people.

“Time is running out and we urgently need ministers to take a pause, engage with workers and their unions and realise Scotland can build better public services without the need for swinging the axe,” Ms Foyer insisted.