In the long term the challenge is to maintain a healthy balance between the labour force and the rest of the population. To a high degree the large government surpluses relate to the strong growth, but also to extraordinarily high revenue from taxation of pension yields and corporate tax, including from the North Sea.
This type of revenue cannot finance permanently higher expenditure or tax cuts. The sound economy must be maintained, which could prove to be a challenge, knowing that the number of 25-60 year-olds, who are the core of today's labour force, will decline by almost 20,000 per year over the next ten years.