Finance Secretary John Swinney claims the SNP�s much-vaunted successor to private finance, the Scottish Futures Trust, is about to start delivering new schools and hospitals.
Finance Secretary John Swinney claims the SNP's much-vaunted successor to private finance, the Scottish Futures Trust, is about to start delivering new schools and hospitals.
This year the SNP government will pass the mid-point of its administration and, while health and education will be challenging, it is on Mr Swinney's enormously broad remit that political success or failure will depend.
He must come up with a new model for public procurement very soon, he must hold together the new model relationship with local government under the much-vaunted historic concordat, and he must either deliver local income tax or paint its wreckers as defenders of the council tax.
He told The Herald: "The Scottish Futures Trust will start to deliver in 2009 through the hub projects in healthcare and the next part of the school building programme. I have no doubt about that.
"For a comparison you have to look at when the Labour-Liberal Democrat administration first came into power nearly 10 years ago. It took them years to start delivering new schools and hospitals. We have been building schools since the day we came into office."
But these projects were inherited from the last administration and mainly came with the PFI/PPP funding mechanism. Mr Swinney needs a real hit with the new SFT mechanism as soon as possible, as the political time bought by appointing financier Sir Angus Grossart to head it up runs out.
Mr Swinney remains bullish, in spite of a mauling from the CBI, who claimed government support for business was only "skin deep".
Iain McMillan of CBI Scotland this week said: "A government truly committed to growing businesses and developing Scotland's economy would not risk turning businesses and top-level skills away from Scotland by introducing a local income tax."
The Finance Secretary responded: "The New Year message from the CBI is what I would characterise as a game of two halves. It is very complimentary towards the government on many of the measures that we have taken, particularly in relation to planning, to business rates, to regulation, to education, to skills, and then it is critical of some other areas.
"I am not going to suggest that the government can do absolutely everything that will impress CBI Scotland, but what I am determined to do is to make sure that the government remains committed to ensuring that sustainable economic growth is at the heart of everything we do."
He insisted of the plans for local income tax: "The government is working towards bringing forward a Bill in 2009 to abolish the unfair council tax and replace it with a fairer system of local income tax based on ability to pay, under which the majority of Scots families will be better off."
Mr Swinney was also confident that his relationship with local authorities would stay the course this year. "Let's be clear. They were thoroughly fed up with by the relationship they had with the last government, which was characterised by micro-management from the centre, nit-picking fights and the stealing of responsibilities away from councils locally.
"This government said we would have none of that. We said we would create a partnership of equals and that is exactly what we have done."
