Scottish budget ducks tax and shunts austerity to councils

If yesterday’s budget is “a Scottish response to austerity” then we are in very deep trouble. A response to austerity has to be more than simply administering George Osborne’s efforts to wreck our public services.

Let's start by acknowledging that the root cause of the problem is Tory austerity. The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement confirmed that public expenditure in Scotland faces year-on-year real term reductions. By 2020 
it will be 12.5% lower in real terms than when the Conservatives came
 to power in 2010. This is the equivalent of one pound in every eight being cut by 2020. 

There are also further commitments on Scotland’s public services including around £250m in payroll costs due to the UK government increase in National Insurance contributions. At the time he announced these increases he vaguely suggested that the savings to the Treasury would be recycled into public services. I said then that ‘pigs might fly’, and true to form they haven’t.

This leaves John Swinney with some difficult choices on tax and spending. A real response to austerity would have looked at growing the spending envelope by increasing tax revenues. I am not unsympathetic to his argument against using the Calman powers on income tax, because there will be no power to introduce variable rates until the new Scotland Act powers are implemented in 2017. As many of us argued, this was the big flaw in the Calman compromise. There is a welcome new 3% LBTT supplement on second homes, although it is less clear why properties below £40,000 are exempt, or why the supplement isn’t larger. Other Scottish taxes only increase with inflation.

Far from increasing taxes when new powers arrive, they announced a 50% cut in Air Passenger Duty. This is not only bad for the environment, just days after the FM’s Paris climate change rhetoric, but it also amounts to even more middle class welfare. A 50% cut in APD would put an additional 60,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. It's also a social justice issue because half the public doesn’t fly. No prizes for guessing which half.

The big cop out was the Council Tax freeze. Even George Osborne recognised the pressures on social care by promoting an increase in the Council Tax in England that is likely to raise £2bn. An equivalent in Scotland would expand the spending envelope, and together with the money he is routing through health, would start to make an impact on Scotland’s very real social care crisis. The problem with routing £250m of funding through the NHS is that health boards, with some justification, will argue that they need an equivalent to the English NHS increase and therefore will find every way possible to avoid passing all the funds on. The recent Audit Scotland report on integration includes all the warning signs.

While any tax freeze is popular, most people understand that it can’t go on forever. If the Scottish Government want’s to support income, there are more progressive ways of doing this than a tax freeze that helps wealthy households the most. It is the most disadvantaged who pay for this tax freeze through cuts in services and increased charges.

The big loser in yesterday’s budget is local government. The budget is cut by 3.5% or £500m in cash terms. On top of that there are additional commitments like the NI increases that could double that cut. CoSLA calculates this will cost 15,000 jobs or ‘the equivalent of 50 Tata Steelworks’ – but don’t expect a taskforce! 

A cynic might take the view that the Scottish Government is simply outsourcing the most difficult cuts to councils – the ‘not me guv’ strategy. References in the budget document to reform, including shared services, are not going to plug the gap. When will politicians learn that more centralisation simply doesn’t work.

I spotted a related announcement in England yesterday that is worth watching. There is a plan to devolve Attendance Allowance (AA) to English councils. When free care for the elderly was introduced the Scottish Government argued that they should get the savings this policy created for AA. Unsurprisingly, the Treasury said no. However, if they devolve this funding there should be Barnett consequentials of some £500m. Not all of this would be ‘new’ to Scotland, but it could provide a source of some additional funds for social care.

There is little good news for the rest of the public sector in the budget. Food Standards Scotland faces a significant cut, so check your xmas dinner because regulatory and funding cuts means inspection and enforcement are being cut. The Fair work, skills and training budget is cut by £13m in real terms. The Tories and Liberals who like to portray Scottish Water as a burden on the budget, might like to note that it will make a positive contribution to the budget of nearly £100m.

Education and police budgets largely flatline. For education, the Scottish Funding Council faces a small real terms funding cut of £23m. The Scottish Police Authority budget is also cut by £12m in real terms although mostly on capital spending. There is a welcome £4m uplift for community justice services. Fire and Rescue has a somewhat larger cut of nearly £20m in real terms.

Iain Macwhirter makes some valid points on why silence on tax is a ‘counsel of despair’ in today’s Herald. He said: “The Scottish political classes like to boast their progressive credentials and they vie with each other in their hatred of the evil Tories. But they are all for social justice just as long as it doesn't mean increasing taxes.”

A proper Scottish response to austerity would be to have a serious national conversation about tax. Yesterday’s budget ducked the big issues and simply shunted austerity down to councils.   

Time to get serious about social care

While sound and fury explodes all around us on NHS spending, spare a thought for the crisis in Scotland's social care system.

Today, I was in parliament for the launch of the Commission for the Provision of Quality Care in Scotland report. The Commission was established by Neil Findlay MSP when he was Shadow Cabinet for Health and Wellbeing with the aim of reviewing how we can improve the way adult social care is delivered. It was Chaired by David Kelly who was a Director of one of the first Community Health and Care Partnerships in Scotland and brought together all the main stakeholders.

The strength of this Commission and the earlier one on health inequalities is two fold. Firstly, they address issues that don't get nearly enough attention in the Scottish health debate, that at times seems obsessed by A&E waiting times to exclusion of all else! Secondly, Neil was very clear in his remit that he didn't just want another analysis of the issues (something we are very good at in Scotland), he wanted solutions. Even if the solutions might be politically difficult.

The report starts with a stark assessment of the current position. We have an ageing population with an increase in multi-morbidity and long term conditions. In disadvantaged areas the most common co-morbidity is mental health and this combination has a strong association with health inequalities and negative outcomes for individuals and families.

These additional demands bring with them associated costs. The report estimates a real term increase of up to £2bn per annum will be required by our health and social care system by 2025. With a small growth in the size of the overall population this is likely to place an increasing tax burden on the working age population. The recent IPPR report reinforces this point.

During the years of Tory austerity the Scottish NHS budget has had a degree of protection at the expense of other public services including social care.This approach has failed to recognise the inextricably linked relationship between acute hospital care and care in the community. The consequences can be seen in the numbers of patients blocking beds in our hospitals and a £5million increase in the amount councils are having to generate from charging income for social care in order to compensate for the financial shortfalls.

The report describes the complex and frankly inadequate ways the quality of care is assessed in Scotland. UNISON Scotland's 'Time to Care' report starkly set out the views of care staff over the quality of care they are forced to deliver. While in the main health and social care services are provided good levels of quality, there are still too many examples of poor quality. The report concludes that general trends about quality cannot be ignored. In particular, the connection between the quality of staffing, working conditions, and quality of care is a matter of primary importance.

The workforce chapter seeks to address a key component of this. The Commission recognises that more than anything else, the payment of the living wage and a general improvement of terms and conditions will be required to deliver a social care workforce consistent with our aspirations for quality care. This view is shared by the evidence submitted to the Commission from both trade unions and employers across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The contracting race to the bottom in care provision has to stop.

Since the report was written the social care crisis has if anything got worse and today councils and providers in England are making similar points. We have residential and homecare providers in in very difficult financial circumstances, drawing on reserves and some are struggling to meet even day to day cash flow. Others have significant vacancy rates and increasing staff turnover. Social workers in care of the elderly teams report that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a provider to deliver care packages in some parts of the country.

Pay is but one element of fair work. The Commission commends UNISON's Ethical Care Charter that includes the wider considerations that commissioners of home care should account for when contracting. These include training, induction, travel time, ending zero-hours contracts and most importantly ensuring that there is time to care.

The Scottish Government's standard response to concerns about social care is to refer to the new Integrated Joint Board's that aim to provide a seamless care service. While the Commission supports this approach, it recognises that this structural change will not in itself be enough. The recent Audit Scotland report confirms this. Despite the Kerr report and much talk about preventative spending, we have not been able to break the public perception that everyone should have a district general hospital within ten minutes of their house – nor the political pressure to satisfy that thirst.

The Commission argues that a top-down approach to the commissioning of services will fail to deliver responsive care and support. The report places an emphasis on getting locality planning right building on the knowledge and capacity of local people about their own wellbeing. It also recognises that best practice needs to be supported and rewarded. Equally, there is a need to work with poorly performing locality teams to improve outcomes. We need to recognise that not all differences in outcomes are down to differential resources. It can reflect poor leadership, organisation and bad practice.

Housing provision also needs to change if we are to address the needs of an ageing population. All too often, a person will move from their family home into a care home via a period in hospital.This is partly because of the lack of suitable alternatives at local level. We need to build new, affordable and sustainable housing, with a range of house types and sizes that encourages mobility in the housing system and enables downsizing for those that wish it. Housing support services currently play a small, but significant, role in supporting older people to remain living at home and needs to be expanded.

A key recommendation of the Commission is that we fundamentally rearticulate the basic social contract between the citizen and state based on the principle of reciprocity.That people contribute to the wider social good through payment of tax and direct contribution to care and support – and in return people receive high quality care and support when they need it and irrespective of their financial circumstances. This means addressing the current differences between services free at the point of use such as healthcare and some social care, but not for those under the age of 65.

As such, the Commission arrives at a new and more robust social contract: the responsibility of the state is to ensure that citizens with personal care needs receive that care free at the point of use; and that citizens are otherwise responsible for their daily living costs and additional support requirements, funded from personal wealth or income, or for those citizens who are less well off, from welfare support.

Finally, the Commission addresses the question of funding. A properly funded and organised social care system would actually save money. For example, a bed in a District General Hospital costs in the order of £2,500 per week, as compared with £500-£800 per week for a care home and even less for home care. The Commission points to work done elsewhere in the UK on the options for addressing the funding gap, something we have simply ducked in Scotland. A national conversation needs to be informed by a detailed examination of the spending gap and how that might be funded. The Commission makes no claim that its work is sufficiently detailed to be a definitive statement on this issue. However, they do say that it is sufficiently large that it cannot be wished away or ignored.

The value of this Commission report is that it does more than simply analyse the scale of the problem, important though that it is if we as citizens are to grasp the importance of social care. The Commission goes much further in describing what a quality care might look like and how it should be delivered. It also doesn't duck the need for a new social contract and the necessary conversation about funding.

 

Big challenges face health and care integration

Audit Scotland highlight major challenges for health and care integration in a report published today.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 aims to ensure health and social care services are well integrated and that people receive the care they need at the right time and in the right setting, with a focus on community-based and preventative care.

The report recognises widespread support for the reforms and all 31 integration authorities (IAs) are expected to be operational by the statutory deadline of 1 April 2016. There are significant differences in which services will be covered by the IAs as this chart shows:

 

Despite this progress, Audit Scotland have identified significant risks which need to be addressed and they argue that IAs will not be in a position to make a major impact during 2016/17. Difficulties in agreeing budgets and uncertainty about longer-term funding mean that they have not yet set out comprehensive strategic plans. Many IAs have still to set out clear targets and timescales showing how they will make a difference to people who use health and social care services.
 
The report also points to the complexity of the proposed governance arrangements, with some uncertainty about how they will work in practice. This will make it difficult for staff and the public to understand who is responsible for the care they receive.
 
There are significant long-term workforce issues identified in the report with IAs inheriting workforces that have been organised in response to budget pressures rather than strategic needs. Other issues include different terms and conditions for NHS and council staff, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining GPs and care staff. They identify three main workforce difficulties:
 

•  Financial pressures on the NHS and councils. NHS boards and councils continue to face pressures from tightening budgets and rising demand for services. Most councils have responded to these pressures in part by reducing staff numbers and outsourcing some services to the private and voluntary sectors. These changes are less evident in the health sector. As a result, there are concerns that any future changes to the workforce will not affect health and care staff equally.
•  Difficulties in recruiting and retaining social care staff. Over many years, councils have had difficulties recruiting and retaining care home and home care staff. Organisations in areas such as Edinburgh and Aberdeen, with high living costs, have had particular difficulties. There is a need to develop a valued, stable, skilled and motivated workforce. We found examples of organisations developing new approaches to making careers in caring more attractive. For example in Dumfries and Galloway and Aberdeen City they are considering creating caring roles that are part of a defined career path, to encourage more people into these roles.
•  The role of the voluntary and private sectors. Voluntary and private organisations play an important role in providing care and support, but there are particular challenges in how IJBs can involve these diverse organisations as part of a coordinated workforce plan. The introduction of the national living wage will have a significant impact on the voluntary sector and their ability to provide the same level of support for health and care services.

 
Overall, this report is a useful description of the current state of play in developing health and care integration. It also highlights a number of concerns over the pace of progress and the financial and other pressures the new arrangements will face.

Scottish pension funds and infrastructure investment

MSP’s have highlighted today how local government pension funds could make a useful contribution to infrastructure in Scotland.

The Scottish Parliament’s Local Government and Regeneration Committee has published a report on pension fund investment in infrastructure and City Deal spend. This is a good analysis of the current position and they examine the barriers to infrastructure and other socially useful investment.

The Committee draws attention to the UNISON Scotland report Funding and building the homes Scotland needs 2013. I wrote this paper with assistance from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. It called for local authority pension funds, with Government backing, to invest in Registered Social Landlords providing low risk and socially useful investment. Sadly, nearly three years later, there has been only a limited take up of this proposal, while £billions have been invested in overseas equities – not to mention arms companies, tobacco firms and fossil fuels.

The Committee identifies a number of barriers to infrastructure investment. Most of these have been recognised by the Scheme Advisory Board (SAB) for the Scottish LGPS and are included in their current workplan.

The investment regulations limit the amount of investment each fund is allowed to invest in infrastructure and other categories. These are overly prescriptive and the SAB at its last meeting recommended abolishing them and replacing the regulations with a more flexible code of practice.

Another barrier is lack of expertise. In effect pension funds invest in what they are comfortable with or as the Government Actuary Department (GAD) put it: “GAD considered funds didn’t invest in infrastructure because of a lack of necessary expertise to assess and quantify the risks involved, so they preferred to invest in assets with an established income stream.”

The obvious solution is to recruit the expertise. This is linked to an over reliance on expensive external investment managers. Lothian Pension Fund is probably one of the better examples of building in-house capacity in Scotland, but the best UK example is West Yorkshire, as the report notes:

“37. Our attention was also drawn to WYPF and its approach to in-house investment management. In its written submission, it gave a number of advantages over externally managed funds, namely the speed of identifying potential infrastructure opportunities, the speed of authorisation for new infrastructure investments and the ability to manage investments over the longer term as in-house investment managers were free to make investment decisions based on a long-term assessment of the investment and returns.

38. This in-house approach enabled the Fund to gear its strategy towards low risk investments, over a longer period of time, and to keep fee costs down to achieve a 96% funded scheme.”

Fiduciary duty is also claimed to be a barrier to infrastructure investment. In my view this has been interpreted too conservatively by some funds in advice to their pension committee/boards. The report urges funds; “which haven’t yet considered these types of investment, to challenge themselves to do likewise and give a degree of priority to investing members’ funds more locally and building in elements of public good”. This is sound advice and I have written a briefing on fiduciary duty for our members on pension boards that sets out how this can be done. The SAB has also commissioned further legal advice and plans to issue guidance to funds on this issue next year. As the committee puts it; “We make the point that without some degree of risk taking, innovation will not happen. We see parallels with the taking of a narrow interpretation of the fiduciary duty”

The report briefly touches on the pooling of funds as one way over reducing costs and building expertise. This follows the UK Government’s decision to push funds in England and Wales into six ‘wealth funds’. Guidance on this was published last week as part of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. The Committee was ‘less attracted’ to this formal approach, drawing attention to the informal links that exist between funds in Scotland. The SAB has this issue in its workplan and is starting with new data collection tools that should inform this exercise. Pooling investment is not just an issue for infrastructure investment. It is also a means of improving transparency and reducing the very high costs of external investment.

Finally, the Committee looked at the topical issue of ethical investment and concluded:

“43. While considering rates of return, it would be remiss of us not to consider investments in certain industries, for example, fossil fuels, arms and tobacco. These might provide a high rate of return but we question whether local government pension funds should be investing in such industries given social, environmental and ethical considerations. We note Strathclyde Pension Fund’s view these industries would be less responsible if public pensions did not invest and also that collective action by investors can have a greater influence on the industry. We consider funds should be guided by consultation with their members on this issue.”

The Committee is right to question such investments as UNISON representatives have been doing at pension boards. While pension funds are part of local government they are also bound by public law duties that government has placed on councils, such as climate change.

Overall, this short inquiry is a useful overview of pension funds and infrastructure investment and well worth a read. Most of the issues they have identified are being taken forward by the SAB, but there is also an issue of pension fund culture to be addressed. That may be a more intractable challenge.

 

Health and social care funding pressures

The NHS and publicly funded adult social care will account for £157bn of public spending across the UK in 2015/16 – equivalent to 8.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) and accounting for around £1 in every £5 of government spending.

Economists at the Health Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have published a report that looks at the scope for public funding to match these pressures and what the potential funding gap for health and social care looks like. They model the potential revenue that might be raised by different taxes to fill a health and social care funding gap, the distributional impact of the different tax options and how they compare to the profile of the ‘beneficiaries’ of additional health and social care spending.

While the analysis starts from English spending, they do try and extrapolate the numbers to paint a UK wide picture. The pressures in Scotland are in any case very similar. The solutions in Scotland may be different because of our different policy approaches, like 'free' care for the elderly.

The main findings are:

•Our analysis shows that despite government commitments to additional funding for the NHS in the UK, there is still likely to be a shortfall of £2bn in 2020/21, rising to £9bn (above inflation) by 2030/31.
•For adult social care the pressures are greater. We forecast a funding shortfall of £6bn by 2020/21, rising to £13bn in 2030/31, assuming there is no change in policy.
•The projected health funding gap of £9bn in 2030/31 is worth 5% of the projected budget that year; for adult social care the funding gap of £13bn is equivalent to 62% of the total expected budget for 2030/31.
•The combined pressures on health and social care funding will amount to an estimated shortfall of £8bn in 2020/21 and £22bn in 2030/31.
•The government has committed to eliminating the deficit in the national budget by 2019/20 and is planning to run a surplus of £10.5bn (0.5% of GDP) by 2020/21. If the planned fiscal surplus of 0.5% of GDP were spent on health and adult social care, it would close the combined funding gap in 2020/21, but leave an estimated shortfall of £8.4bn in 2030/31.
•One alternative to taxing income and employment is to tax consumption and in particular consumption that has a harmful effect on health – a so called ‘sin-tax’. The report looks at taxing sugar specifically.
•There are choices that need to be made about the medium to long term financing of health and adult social care. One option is to bridge some of the gap through a lower public finance surplus than currently planned; another is to increase taxes.
•While our analysis suggests that the NHS faces considerable pressures, it does not appear unsustainable. However, there must now be real doubts about the sustainability of the current financing system for adult social care.


Social care funding in Scotland is already at crisis point. This report shows that funding pressures are not going to get any easier and some very tough political decisions will be required.

Time to look again at Police Scotland's budget

There needs to be a root and branch look at Police Scotland’s budget next year. We can no longer paper over the cracks caused by badly managed centralisation.

Police Scotland’s finances got off to a poor start when the hastily drafted outline business case was never followed through to a full business case as Audit Scotland confirmed. As a consequence there remain unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved. This is illustrated by a £25m (and rising) budgetary black-hole in the 2015/16 budget.

IT systems that are crucial to reform have suffered from delays and overspend. Getting systems right is not just about cost and efficiency, as the M9 tragedy showed. The HMICS report has taken into account the high level of pressure that UNISON police staff members work under in the Contact, Command and Control (C3) division of Police Scotland. Let’s hope this report shapes the C3 direction with greater accountability and assurances for the public.

The findings of the Police Scotland staff survey are a stark reminder of the impact reform has had on the workforce. A committed and dedicated workforce has become increasingly demoralised and overworked with the perception that the organisation they work for doesn’t care and won’t invest in their health, safety and wellbeing. Only 8% of staff thought the organisation was genuinely interested in staff wellbeing.

Police reform was meant to identify efficiencies through reductions in duplication of posts. However, proposals are purely designed to reduce budgets, not reduce duplication. Through the pursuit of an agenda of centralisation, we have seen the closure of mainly local service provisions such as; station front counters, call-handling, control rooms and custody. This has resulted in police staff who come from and are stakeholders in the communities they serve, being sacrificed to maintain police officer numbers at an artificially high number.

There has still been no indication that detailed work has been carried out to establish the number of officers required to police Scotland. The previous Chair of the SPA announced that this work was to go ahead shortly after his appointment, but we are still waiting. Nor has any work been carried out to establish how effective this figure is in maintaining low crime figures. Police Scotland has a statutory duty to abide by Best Value principles and a proper study is long overdue.

Significant numbers of police officers are now performing roles which can and should be performed by police staff at a fraction of the cost. Recent figures show that there may be a gap of approximately 7,000 police officers who are not frontline when compared to the 17,261 officer strength figure quoted by the SPA.

As Dr Kath Murray, from Edinburgh University, puts it: “Unlike England and Wales, data is not available on rank or officer function. There is no data on officers available for duty, nor the numbers that join or leave the force. Meanwhile, the published totals include officers on maternity leave, long-term sick leave and on secondment. The net result is that officer strength in Scotland cannot be openly scrutinised or analysed.”

The decision to employ 1000 extra Police Officers was taken pre-austerity and there is now widespread support to review this figure. For example, the Police Superintendents (APSE) has said: “There is clearly some significant budget pressure and challenges ahead. We would like to see an intelligent conversation to consider all of the options. Included within that would absolutely be whether the lock-in on 1,000 additional officers remains the right policy, or whether it’s time to review that and look at more of a mixed staffing model.

It is now time to look closely at the total workforce requirement of Police Scotland to ensure a balanced workforce; the correct types of Staff or Officers carrying out roles appropriate to their qualifications and needs of the organisation.

I would also agree with colleagues in the Scottish Police Federation that the Scottish Government would be foolish to continue with its programme of police cuts in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. This is only one of many additional burdens being placed on Police Scotland.

The unique and major flaw in police reform has been the cosmetic police officer number target that should have corrected when Police Scotland was created. This flaw does not allow management to make the right Best Value decisions to create an effective, efficient, modern police force for Scotland. It’s time to change course or it will only get worse.

Eliminating fuel poverty by Nov 2016? I think not.

Given the short term thinking that bedevils much political thinking, we can be forgiven for looking cynically at government targets that stretch long ahead of the political cycle. However, sometimes they catch up with governments. One such legislative target is the eradication of fuel poverty in Scotland by November 2016.

This target is given some focus for me today, as I am chairing a session at the annual conference of the fuel poverty charity Energy Action Scotland. UNISON Scotland is affiliated to this campaigning charity that also delivers a wide range of practical actions to help alleviate fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is defined as a household having to spend 10% or more of its income on energy to maintain a warm home. When I first got involved it was almost exclusively an issue for the elderly - no longer.

A recent report by Citizen's Advice Scotland told the story of a father of a two-week old baby who was left without any money for gas and electricity, after being told he had to wait two weeks for a Universal Credit payment. Another case in the east of Scotland involved a couple with a nine-month-old baby girl being left without any money for food or gas and electricity. Their benefit was stopped by the Department of Work and Pensions after it claimed a sick note had not been received - even though it had been sent the previous week.

According to CAS, the number of Scots in 'fuel poverty' has soared by 130% in the past five years, with shocking cases of struggling households being left for months without any means of heating or cooking. They dealt with 28,000 cases involving energy issues in 2014-15 – an increase of a third from the previous year and up 130% since 2011.

Energy Action Scotland's Director Norrie Kerr, has also said that they see a lot of younger people in fuel poverty who are on the minimum wage or less than the minimum wage, who are really struggling just to make ends meet: “It is not just about pensioners any more, it is about in-work poverty. When you are being squeezed like that there is the very real dilemma for people between heating and eating. In some cases foodbanks are being asked for food parcels that don’t require people to heat anything, because they are frightened to put on the cooker to boil a pan of pasta or heat a tin of beans."

So, are we going to meet the legislative requirement to eliminate fuel poverty by November 2016? Based on what we heard at today's conference, almost certainly not. Are we making sufficient effort to try and reach this target? Again probably not.

One particular disappointment is the Scottish Government's decision to postpone a consultation on energy efficiency measures in private sector housing. This is the fastest growing housing sector and landlords need help and support, and tenants need protection against unjustified rent increases. CAS covered this issue well in their report 'Coming in from the Cold'.

Funds have been made available for fuel poverty, but it simply isn't enough. We heard about a some measures and more task groups and reviews. As with other policy areas we are very good in Scotland at analysing the problem - less good at making difficult decisions to solve them. Equally the UK government programmes are also inadequate, but as some are to be devolved, we have an opportunity to bring programmes together and do some things differently.

Energy efficiency is only one aspect of the measures needed to tackle fuel poverty. The other two are the price of energy and income support. Action on prices have been limited with the cost going up by 180% between 2002 and 2013. If prices had gone up with inflation fuel poverty in Scotland would be below 11% of households, instead of 39%. It has only been helped very recently by the drop in wholesale prices - rather than government action over the failed energy market.

Government's put great emphasis on switching supplier and there has been some increased take up recently. However, it is far from a smooth process. I recently switched supplier and was presented with an absurd estimated opening gas reading that was almost double my last bill. As a consequence I was presented with a bill for £3,600!

On income support, the U.K. Government's slashing of social security is having a devastating impact on low income families in and out of work. We should also not forget the cut in real wages over a decade or more. This is something the Scottish Government could do more on, including the living wage for care workers. As Jackie Baillie reminded us today, the £1300 cut in Tax Credits is the equivalent of the average annual fuel bill.

If the same number of people suffering from fuel poverty had an illness or disease we would be crying out for the government to take action by pouring resources into the NHS. It's time to treat fuel poverty with the priority it deserves.