24 October 2003
A Scottish Executive minister has called for a separate civil service for Scotland to reduce the impact of Whitehall on the devolved government.
Tavish Scott, the deputy minister for public services, received backing from a majority of his Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Scottish Parliament.
'It would be an excellent opportunity for Scottish graduates to be at the top of policy-making, and one of the best ways of doing this would be not to be tied to the old Whitehall model,' Scott told the parliamentary magazine Holyrood.
Former social justice minister Jackie Baillie said: 'A separate civil service would have much clearer lines of accountability to Scottish ministers.'
But the idea was rubbished by the Scottish Executive and civil service unions. 'The civil service code was amended at the time of devolution to make it clear that civil servants owe their loyalty to the administration they serve rather than the UK government,' said an executive spokesman.
Eddie Reilly, Scottish secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said that in the current situation Scotland was able to benefit from the experience of civil servants throughout the UK.
PFoct2003
