SIR Gus O'Donnell, the head of the Civil Service, has been called upon to give assurances that the creation of a new highly paid official at Holyrood will not be allowed to become an "independence tsar" for the SNP Government.
Concerns have been raised by Lord Forsyth, the former Conservative Scottish Secretary, that the Civil Service in Scotland is becoming politicised and used to promote separation from the rest of the UK.
He and other politicians, including the three leaders of the opposition parties at Holyrood, recently aired their fears that Sir Peter Housden, the top civil servant in Scotland, had “gone native” and was actively promoting independence.
However, last week, Sir Gus responded by backing his colleague, telling critics: “It is right that civil servants working to their respective administrations undertake the relevant work to support their ministers to pursue their aims, whether or not these are the subject of controversy.”
Now concerns are to be raised in the House of Lords about the appointment by First Minister Alex Salmond of a director general for strategy and external affairs on a salary between £101,500 and £208,100.
Lord Forsyth said: “How they can find £208,000 a year, plus all the implications for a final salary scheme beggars belief.”
The Scottish Government said the new post will “strengthen our capability to deliver the Government’s programme for Scotland”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article