The title given to Muir Russell, Scotland's senior civil servant, when he took control of the planning group for the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood is both specific and revealing. He was called the Accountable Officer. What, then, are we to make of the charge from the MSPs on the audit committee that he was ''semi-detached'' from the project? The committee report published yesterday contains several other charges against civil servants which are disturbing and bring into tighter focus the growing anxieties over the way in which civil servants operate at Holyrood. It is true that civil servants enjoy hugging to themselves a sort of persecution complex. They believe that their ministers are often unfit for the job and that this puts extra pressure on the civil service. They believe that the public does not understand what they do, but that is hardly surprising given their habitual culture
of secrecy. None of this necessarily makes for good governance under devolution.
There is a history to the disquiet felt about the civil service in Scotland. When it operated under the old Scottish Office, the absence of ministers in London for most of the week meant that the democratic controls which politicians should exert over the civil service were in some measure absent. Indeed, one of the principal reasons for home rule, and one of the great hopes when a devolved parliament was achieved, was that the problem of the Scottish Office and the seemingly arrogant paternalism of its Edinburgh-based bureaucracy would be dealt with once and for all. This was not an extravagant or unreasonable hope. It is not too much to ask that civil servants act as servants of the people, or that they remember that the money which they administer through many projects is, in fact, the people's money.
The facts uncovered by the audit committee at Holyrood suggest that the problems have hardly been addressed, far less resolved. If Mr Russell was semi-detached from the project for the new building, he is also criticised for creating a misunderstanding in the public mind about the eventual full costs of the project. The committee says it has no confidence in his view that the project, when transferred to parliamentary control in June 1999, was sustainable within the set budget, and that an independent review should have been held. Most damningly, Mr Muir is tagged with that old civil service vice of lack of transparency in that he admitted not informing the late Donald Dewar about the initial rise in costs when it was first identified.
Neither is he alone in his alleged transgressions. Paul Grice, the parliament's clerk and chief executive, is criticised for withholding information from MSPs about the costs possibly reaching #115m. In fairness, there are two sides to every story. Mr Russell stoutly maintains that the project was sound when handed over to parliament, although if he was, indeed, semi-detached it is reasonable to ask how he could know. Mr Grice simply didn't believe the figures given for rising costs, although he did make an effort to get to the bottom of them. This was overtaken by subsequent events.
In terms of the Holyrood project, some of the lessons which must be learned are obvious and have been spotted by the committee. It is imperative that civil servants overseeing large projects keep ministers informed, and to do that they must make sure that they, themselves, are properly informed. It would also be wise to make sure that civil servants both understand and follow the existing guidelines on managing large projects which are set down by the Treasury.
The executive is defending Mr Russell strongly by insisting that cost overruns came after the project was handed over to parliament. It may be right, but ministers must consider how, without damaging the non-political ethos of the civil service, they can ensure that it gives a service worthy of its best traditions.
