Scottish Government must work 'harder and smarter' in face of Westminster 'cuts', says Swinney

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The Scottish Government will need to work “harder and smarter” to deliver for the people in the face of Westminster “cuts”, First Minister John Swinney will warn today.

But with ending child poverty one of his key priorities, he will tell how his Government will “tailor support better to families” so they can “get the help they need”.While this will not have the same “immediate impact” as ending the two-child cap on some benefits – something Labour has said it does not have the money to do – Mr Swinney will describe the move as an “an example of the sustained, smarter policy-making we are delivering in government”.He will make the remarks as he addresses the SNP conference in Edinburgh on Sunday – making his first keynote conference address since becoming SNP leader and Scottish First Minister back in May.

The conference, however, comes in the wake of a bruising general election for the SNP, which saw its tally of MPs drop from 48 in 2019 to just nine.Mr Swinney has already accepted it was a “bad election” for his party.

But he will use his closing address to the conference to set out his priorities for the Scottish Government.With MSPs returning to Holyrood this week, the First Minister will formally set out his legislative plans for the coming year in the programme for government on Wednesday.Ahead of that, he will use his conference speech to set his focus on delivering what he sees as the “people’s priorities”: ending child poverty; reaching net-zero; delivering strong public services; and boosting the economy.However, Mr Swinney will say: “In an era of Westminster cuts, we are going to have to work harder, and smarter, if we are to deliver on our ambitions for Scotland.”He will promise to, next week, “set out how we