HR and recruitment issues outlined in SNP Scottish independence plan

A white paper released on Tuesday (26 November) outlining the Scottish National Party’s case for Scottish independence contains a number of areas relevant to jobs, recruitment and personnel management.
Thu, 28 Nov 2013A white paper released on Tuesday (26 November) outlining the Scottish National Party’s case for Scottish independence contains a number of areas relevant to jobs, recruitment and personnel management.

At 670 pages and 107,000 words long, we can forgive time-pressed recruiter.co.uk readers if they’ve not had the time to look through all of ‘Scotland's Future: Your Guide to an Independent Scotland’ – and anyhow, we’ve had a look for you.

Area of relevance include:

•    pXIII: Minimum wage would always rise at least in line with inflation. The Scottish government would continue to support paying the higher ‘living wage’ to central government staff, and promote it more broadly.

•    p40: A Scottish Broadcasting Service would take over the assets and the staff of the existing BBC Scotland.

•    p42: Staff employed by the UK government will remain on Westminster’s payroll “where it still requires their skills”, or else transfer to the Scottish government. Pension commitments will be fully honoured for transferred staff.

•    p58: The SNP believes it would be able “to create more opportunities for young people… to retain more of our working age population, and to attract back people who have chosen to work elsewhere”.

•    p102 The new-look Scotland would also “develop an approach to immigration to attract international talent at a level that would support high growth companies”.

•    p187: An independent Scotland would grow its science and innovation sector as a key to “achieving sustainable economic growth”. The sector currently has 620 organisations and 30,000 workers.

•    p229: The country could recruit 1,100-2,700 staff for overseas missions, based on the diplomatic headcount of comparable countries including Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand. have 50-100 overseas missions with.

•    p320: There is a suggestion it would recruit more people to its Coastguard, a service which it says has been shrunk by Westminster, and is important to those working in offshore industries, such as oil & gas.

•    p349: Scotland would have to recruit to a new public debt management function, seeking “skilled and experienced staff to ensure credibility in the sovereign bond markets”.

•    p364: The establishment of a “citizen-focused personal tax system” from May 2016, with staff transferring from HM Revenue & Customs to Revenue Scotland, as it will be known.

•    p437: Staffing decisions in the NHS will continue to be made by Health Boards “in line with their own local needs and circumstances”, as is already the case.

•    p480: Scots personnel serving in the UK armed forces would not be forced to transfer to newly-created Scottish defence services. Units mainly recruited in Scotland would likely be negotiated for transfer.

•    p575: There would be no compulsory redundancies in the devolved public sector. Government jobs will grow overall, with employment coming in the re-organisation of services currently located elsewhere in the UK. There are currently around 30,700 public servants in the Scottish government, its agencies and devolved public bodies, and around 6,500 staff working in Scotland for UK public bodies.

•    p594: Parts of the public sector touted for particular jobs growth include.

The referendum on the issue of independence will be held on 18 September 2014.

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