eFinancialCareers

The indignity of it was too much for one politician to bear. Morgan Stanley, thinking of starting a Glasgow operation last year, was handed £6m by the government to make the move to Scotland. Then it turned out they would have set up here anyway.

Fuming, Derek Brownlee MSP, Scottish Conservatives finance spokesman, spluttered: “You can only justify the use of taxpayers’ money to create jobs if they would not have come without money.”

Fast-forward 12 months (nearly to the day) and, amid global scenes of tens of thousands of financial services redundancies, and John Swinney, cabinet secretary for finance, boldly proclaims that 2,500 financial services jobs will be created in Scotland.

Just one thing – they’ll be aided by the Regional Selective Assistance scheme which gives grants to firms setting up north of the border and last year handed out nearly £88m.

It’s a shrewd move and one that has yet to attract any naysayers. Firstly, it gives financial institutions, reeling under shrinking margins, a quick way to keep a bit of extra cash on top of what they’d already save on outsourcing these roles, making Scotland more attractive.

Secondly, while financial centres like the City cut back, Scotland shouts to the world that it’s in expansion mode. This, however, might be slightly misleading.

The bulk of the job losses in the Square Mile and on Wall Street are in investment banks, or other front-office investment roles. Let’s face it, Scotland isn’t about to see hordes of fund managers or investment bankers knocking at the door, so there’s no real comparison.

More likely, as Scotland fast develops a reputation for investment operations, this is where the jobs will be created. Which then begs another question – who’s going to fill them?

In this space, it’s still very much a candidate-driven market as rapid expansion – over 65,000 new financial services jobs have been created over the last five years – inevitably leads to a skills shortage.

There’s no doubt that the Scottish government should be praised for the sentiment. But with the Fresh Talent initiative already doing its best to lure foreign employees to Scotland and various education initiatives under way to attract much-needed talent into the sector, now might not be the right time to create yet more jobs.