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Capital spending focus would save 13,000 builders' jobs, says SBF
17/11/10
Edited by Tom Bardsley.Prioritising capital spending in the 2011-12 Scottish government budget would protect around 13,000 builders' jobs in the next financial year, it has been argued.
Giving evidence to MSPs ahead of the publication of the country's draft spending plan today (17th November), Scottish Building Federation (SBF) chief executive Michael Levack backed a suggestion that finance secretary John Swinney will transfer funding from resource to capital expenditure.
Westminster has proposed that the entire £900 million cut in Scotland's budget for 2011-12 is absorbed by capital projects.
Mr. Levack said this would be "at best deeply unfair and at worst dangerously flawed".
He added that such a move could see the number of affordable homes built in Scotland drop from nearly 6,000 in 2009-10 to less than 3,000 in 2011-12.
Furthermore, Mr. Levack claimed a number of economists have backed transferring funding to capital spending as the "most effective means" of supporting the country's economic recovery.
Overall, the Westminster government has said it intends to cut public expenditure by £81 billion by 2014-15.
