SCOTLAND’S public services are performing significantly worse than before the Covid-19 pandemic, despite receiving funding boosts, according to a new study.

While think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found there were signs of improvement since the end of the pandemic, in its second election briefing — funded by the Nuffield Foundation and the Robertson Trust — it has warned that hospitals, schools and courts still have a long way to go to return to pre-Covid levels.

Despite public service funding being 26 per cent higher per head in Scotland, comparisons with elsewhere in Britain — though difficult due to differences in how services are delivered and monitored — produced mixed results.

Researchers found court backlogs were falling in Scotland while they continued to rise in England and Wales, and while A&E targets remained unmet in Scotland, they were shorter than elsewhere in Britain, but the picture was less rosy in education.

Performance in international Pisa tests for 15-year-olds has consistently fallen and has remained lower than in England for more than a decade, while the gap between school absence rates in Scotland and England has grown since the pandemic.

The report also found that while staffing had increased by 14 per cent, hospital activity was lower, with the number of hospital admissions and outpatient appointments in Scotland still below 2019 levels, unlike in England and Wales.

Looking ahead, report co-author David Phillips said: “There is set to be a significant slowdown in increases in funding from the UK government.

“Combined with a hangover from some bad budgeting habits the current Scottish government has got into — for example, relying on one-off funding for recurrent costs such as pay increases — this means the Scottish budget will be under strain.

“Indeed, in the absence of increases in revenues, many public services will likely face cuts in their budgets over the coming Parliament.

“That will make sustaining — let alone improving — performance a real challenge for the next Scottish government.

“Indeed, if it were not for additional UK government funding confirmed in the spring statement this week, a post-election emergency Scottish budget and in-year cuts to other services would have been very much on the cards.”

The Scottish government was contacted for comment.