NURSES' leaders led public sector calls for John Swinney not to rely on supposed efficiency savings for today's Budget and three-year spending review.

Insisting that such savings were often “cuts in all but name”, the Scottish director of the Royal College of Nursing, Theresa Fyffe, said: “Saving money by losing nursing and other staff from the payroll looks set to continue which, in turn, puts standards in patient care at risk.”

Other public sector unions and political opponents joined in the chorus, pleading for the Finance Secretary to avoid any further squeeze because of the impact on services.

Ms Fyffe said: “Instead of continually putting the squeeze on our NHS by setting more and more ambitious targets for ‘efficiency savings’, the Scottish Government needs to use the budget for 2012-13 to set out a clear vision of how it wants to work with the NHS and its workforce to ensure that high-quality patient care can continue.

“This may require some difficult decisions to be taken, but if they are not taken now, we could end up with an NHS requiring emergency treatment in the future.”

But it became clear that Mr Swinney is set to call for further rounds of public sector efficiencies, after the Finance Secretary claimed previous targets had been more than met.

The Government stressed that these efficiencies were measured specifically in areas of procurement and asset management and were separate from broader cuts in public sector employment, which fell by more than 25,000 in the year to last spring.

Mr Swinney published a report setting out the way belt-tightening had worked so far. Three years ago the aim to make 2% efficiency savings was exceeded by £300 million, he claimed, while the following year it was beaten by £400m. Last year the target was overshot by £673m.

The Cabinet Secretary said that meant this year’s target of 3% savings was achievable -- and, by extension, he hinted that more could be done in the next three years of the comprehensive spending review period.

By last year the cumulative saving was almost £2.3 bil-lion. Mr Swinney said: “Public bodies are required to deliver efficiencies of at least 3% this financial year.

“Set against the deep cuts to Scotland’s budget from Westminster, the spending review for the next three years will intensify our focus on value for money and continue to squeeze every penny out of every pound to get the best, most efficient and effective public services.”

But Ms Fyffe said: “The new 3% efficiencies target for the current financial year will squeeze even more money out of health boards who are already struggling to make savings.”

Lynn Henderson, Scottish secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: “Alex Salmond and John Swinney have in the last week said they are for investment in Scotland, that they are for public services and they are for public sector jobs. It is time that they put their money where their mouth is and protect public sector jobs, pay and pensions.”

Labour’s Richard Baker said: “The SNP cannot keep blaming Westminster. They deliberately produced an election budget last year, leaving all the difficult decisions until after the May election.”