KEZIA Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, has drafted in the UK head of Al Gore's climate change campaign as her chief policy adviser, amid fears her backroom team lacks the firepower to take on Nicola Sturgeon.

Evan Williams was brought into Labour's Holyrood team following the departure of seasoned advisers who served under previous leader Jim Murphy.

Mr Murphy's chief of staff John McTernan, a former political secretary to Tony Blair; his social media guru Gregor Poynton, a high-flying public relations executive; and his head of communications Susan Dalgety, a former aide to Jack McConnell have all left since the General Election.

Their departures left Blair McDougall, the former Better Together campaign director who was also a key member of Mr Murphy's team, heading a shoestring operation at Scottish Labour's Glasgow and Holyrood bases.

Chicago-born Mr Williams, a environmental economist, is the UK director of the Climate Reality Project, the volunteer campaign set up by former US Vice President Al Gore.

He runs his own environmental consultancy having worked previously as chief economist with Scotland's pollution watchdog SEPA.

In 2011 he came within 250 votes of becoming an MSP when he lost narrowly to the SNP's George Adam in Paisley.

Blogging on a Labour website earlier this year, he argued the success of the SNP's centre-left agenda showed Scots still backed Labour's "broad policy platform".

However he said Labour had to find a way to "compete for hearts as well as minds" in the face of the Nationalists' emotional and patriotic pitch to voters, a strategy he compared with the Republicans in the US.

Mr Williams has been appointed "special adviser" to Ms Dugdale and will work alongside Mr McDougall, who heads the "strategy and management team".

Press officer David Ross, another former Better Together staffer, has been made Ms Dugdale's official spokesman.

The party has only one other press officer, Kieron Higgins, but is expected to appoint another in the run-up to next May's Holyrood election.

The operation is heavily outgunned by the SNP which has a large team of press officers supporting MSPs at Holyrood and a growing backroom staff at Westminster.

In addition, Scottish Government ministers are supported by 14 special advisers, political appointments within the civil service who are dedicated to public relations and developing policy.

A Scottish Labour insider said: "If you compare Kez's backroom staff with Jim Murphy's, it's obviously a lot leaner.

"To be fair, Jim took over in the run up to the last General Election, when all the parties tend to bulk up.

"But there is a feeling that when the job was to get Ed Miliband elected as Prime Minister there was quite a lot of money around and now we are facing a Holyrood election funds are scarce."

A poll yesterday showed the scale of the challenge facing Ms Dugdale.

The Ipsos Mori survey for STV News showed the SNP on course to extend its majority in next May's election.

Only 20 per cent of those questioned said Ms Dugdale election's as leader would make them more likely to make them vote for Labour, with just over half saying it made no difference.

Nearly a third, 29 per cent, said Labour needed better policies to win their support.

Asked about Ms Dugdale, 32 per cent believed she was doing a good job while 31 per cent were dissatisfied with her performance.

By contrast, 71 per cent said they satisfied with how Nicola Sturgeon was doing her job.

Ms Dugdale faces a major test today when she takes on Ms Sturgeon at First Minister's Questions for the first time since becoming leader last month.

Her first big Holyrood speech as leader, responding to the First Minister's programme for government on Tuesday, failed to make an impact.