A senior CBI figure will tomorrow call on the Scottish government to drop its opposition to the use of the private sector in providing a greater range of public services.

At a conference in Glasgow, Dr Neil Bentley, the CBI’s director of public services, will also urge the government to ditch anti-profit rhetoric on the use of private finance to fund public sector capital projects.

Bentley will say that instead of leading the way on public service reform, Scotland has acquired an unwelcome reputation as somewhere that resists change. “The experience of devolution across Britain is that, despite many benefits, highly effective lobbies of producer interests have exercised far more influence over local executives than they ever could over ministers cosseted in Whitehall,” he will argue.

“The more business thinks the Scottish government is hostile to the privately run ‘public services industry’, the less likely it will be that investment and jobs will come to Scotland. Scotland has led the way in public service reform before, I am sure it can do so again.”

Among those also speaking at the CBI’s public services summit are finance secretary John Swinney MSP, Andy Kerr MSP, Ben Thomson of Noble Group and Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell.

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