Newspaper gets a bit steamed up

The first impression on reading this analysis in The Scotsman might lead you to think that the Scottish Executive's budget is about to be slashed:

"A ROOT and branch review of Scottish public spending which will result in hundreds of millions of pounds being cut from the Executive's budget is expected to be approved by the Cabinet today. Tom McCabe, the finance minister, will tell his colleagues around the table at Bute House that they must plan to make substantial cuts in their spending for the first time since the Executive was established under devolution.
Mr McCabe will tell the coalition government that the impending Whitehall spending review planned by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will force them into making "tough" choices.
With the backing of Jack McConnell, the First Minister, the finance minister will seek Cabinet agreement to introduce a new a "zero baseline budget" scheme for each of the 15 Executive spending areas, ranging from health, through education, transport and justice.
Mr McCabe will tell his colleagues that outside experts will be brought in to look at their budgets, identifying spending priorities and suggesting cuts in areas no longer considered important. "

It is only a careful scrutiny that reveals a rather different message:

"The finance minister's move comes the day after Holyrood's finance committee told ministers that despite Mr Brown's decision to postpone the UK government comprehensive spending review by a year to 2007, there would be far less cash available to Scotland through the Barnett Formula funding mechanism.
Based on analysis from Professor Arthur Midwinter, a public finance expert, the committee warned the Executive - which is planning to spend £27.1 billion this financial year rising to £30.4 billion in 2007-8 - that savings made were not enough to cope with the Whitehall-led public spending slowdown which will bite in three years.
Prof Midwinter's paper warned the Executive that it faced "fundamental choices on public spending, between continuing to rely on more modest levels of incremental growth to advance the budgetary strategy, or to undertake a rigorous and systematic review exercise with a view to releasing resources to fund priorities". "

In other words, the continuing increase from £27.1 billion this year to £30.4 billion in 2007-08 is more or less safe. But thereafter, the continuing increase may be less than during the current period. But Scottish Executive spending will continue to increase, albeit more slowly. This may well cause Ministers problems given the existing commitments to increased spending on various fronts but it is surely misleading of The Scotsman to suggest that "hundreds of millions of pounds" are to be "cut from the Executive's budget". I suppose some dead tree journalists are arithmetically challenged.

I should add that there is nothing new in the idea that the rate of increase in the Executive's budget might eventually have to slow down. So why all these histrionics?