{"id":760528,"date":"2026-09-05T05:58:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/760528\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T05:58:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T05:58:33","slug":"swinney-rules-out-compulsory-redundancies-in-nhs-shake-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/760528\/","title":{"rendered":"Swinney rules out compulsory redundancies in NHS shake up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n One will cover the west of the country and one the east, with separate arrangements still to be confirmed for Shetland<\/a>, Orkney<\/a> and the Western Isles.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Swinney described it as “the most significant structural reform of our NHS in the devolution era”.\n<\/p>\n

\n Unions have raised concerns. Unite described it as a “slash and burn programme” that will inevitably result in “swingeing cuts and thousands of job losses”.\n<\/p>\n

\n Asked by BBC Radio Scotland’s breakfast programme whether the commitment on no compulsory redundancies would survive the reforms, Mr Swinney said: “I’ll maintain the no-compulsory redundancy commitment.\n<\/p>\n

\n “That’s an essential part of how you undertake reform because you provide assurance to members of staff about how they’re going to be dealt with and what context we’re going to be operating in.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Pushed again on whether the guarantee stood, he said: “There’s no question about that in my mind.”\n<\/p>\n

\n He added: “I’ve said before that it’s likely over the next few years that there will be a reduction in public sector employment, and that’s because we have to change the way in which we deliver public services to make sure they are sustainable for members of the public and also that they improve patient care.”\n<\/p>\n

\n \"JohnThe First Minister said job losses in the public sector were inevitable (Image: Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images)\n<\/p>\n

\n Asked directly if job losses were inevitable, he replied: “I’ve said all the time I’ve been First Minister that there will be a need for public sector employment to fall, and I have to live in the realities of the financial situation that we face, but I also need to make sure that we deliver sustainable services and improvements in services to members of the public.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Swinney repeatedly declined to put a number on the scale of expected redundancies, but said ministers would “work collaboratively with the trade union movement”.\n<\/p>\n

\n He said ministers had been meeting with unions “for some time” over the move to the two-board model, and that reform would ultimately be “always done with patients at their heart and with good dialogue with trade unions and staff”.\n<\/p>\n

\n The First Minister was pressed on where exactly the savings would come from, whether senior managerial roles would be cut or departments streamlined. Mr Swinney said the current structures of the health board system were “an obstacle to making sure that we get health care treatment in place as quickly as we would like”.\n<\/p>\n

\n He said the reforms were “about putting patients at the centre of the design of the National Health Service” and about guaranteeing “equitable access to health care services, the length and breadth of the country”.\n<\/p>\n

\n The interview also touched on the government’s food price cap plan, which 23 retail, food production and distribution organisations have written to Mr Swinney urging him to scrap, and which CBI Scotland’s Michelle Ferguson had called “a really bad piece of policy”.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Swinney would not say whether he had received legal advice confirming the policy is compliant with the UK Internal Market Act, saying it “would be in breach of the ministerial code”.\n<\/p>\n

\n Asked who, beyond the Scottish Government<\/a> and anti-poverty campaigners, actually supports the policy, Mr Swinney said the public were overwhelmingly in favour.\n<\/p>\n

\n “I was quite struck by the BBC Reporting Scotland piece on Monday night about this particular issue,” he said. “The BBC went out in the streets of Glasgow and asked members of the public what they thought of the food price cap, and the BBC report used three members of the public, all of whom said they thought it was a good idea.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Pushed on whether that amounted to genuine backing given most people would welcome cheaper food regardless, Mr Swinney said: “Of course they would. But we’re talking about the reality, and that’s precisely why the government is pursuing this approach.”\n<\/p>\n

\n He insisted any legislation “has to be legal and it has to be workable and it has to not damage our food and drink industry”.\n<\/p>\n

\n “What the government is doing is exactly what the government does on all questions, which is we embark on good policy work and consultation,” he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Swinney also rejected any suggestion he was ignoring the farming community’s concerns, pointing to a summer of visits to agricultural shows including the Border Union Show at Kelso<\/a>, Turriff, Perth, Aboyne and the Black Isle. “Of course I listened to the farming community. I represent rural Perth,” he said. “So, yes, I engage. I listen. I listen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One will cover the west of the country and one the east, with separate arrangements still to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-760528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}