Scotland on course to being the third most state-dependent country in world

Only Iraq and Cuba spend more taxpayers' money on public services than Edinburgh

Scotland is on course to become the third most state-dependent country in the world.



Only Cuba and Iraq spend more taxpayers' money on public service, The Sunday Times reports.

Economic forecasters predict that by 2012 public spending will rise to the equivalent of 67 per cent of Scotland's gross domestic product.

In Cuba that figure is 81 per cent and in Iraq it is 87 per cent..



The findings are contained in a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), which says that the uneven spread of cash north of the border is putting an 'unfair burden' on English taxpayers and warns that the burgeoning Scottish public sector is 'unsustainable'.



According to the findings of the study, commissioned by The Sunday Times, Scotland is ranked 20th in the world league table of the highest public-spending governments.



In 2007-08, 56 per cent of economic activity flowed from public spending, compared with 43 per cent in the UK as a whole, which is ranked 42nd in the world.



The figure for Scotland is expected to rise dramatically over the next three years due to a combination of higher unemployment and a shrinking private sector.



One of the biggest drains on taxpayers’ money is the public-sector wage bill, which stands at £12billion, up 61 per cent since devolution, with almost one in four working Scots now employed by the state.



Some £2.3billion is spent on pensions for public-sector workers, whose ranks have risen by 50,000 to nearly 600,000 in the past decade.



Scots now receive £1,644 (22 per cent) more per head than their southern counterparts, up from £828 in 1999.



A spokesman for the finance secretary John Swinney said the forecasts were overestimates