A politically impartial civil service?

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Leak blows hole in key SNP pledge

The SNP's flagship election pledge to replace student loans with grants would cost nearly three times as much as the party claims, according to an explosive analysis written by senior civil servants.

Scotland on Sunday has been passed a secret critique of the Nationalist's key policy commitment prepared by top offices within the Scottish Executive's finance department.

It states that scrapping loans for grants would cost £150 million a year, massively in excess of the SNP's estimate of £60million a year.

"To replace loans with grants would cost an additional £150m, which would have to be found within the Scottish Consolidated Fund (The Scottish Executive's budget)," the report says.

The finding is a major is a major embarrassment to the SNP, which has put student finance at the centre of its election fight.

However, the release of the document also leaves the civil service open to accusations that its neutrality has been compromised just six months before Scotland goes to the polls. The analysis, given to Scotland on Sunday by higher education Minister Allan Wilson, also challenges another key SNP plan to write off all student loans.

It warns that, under Treasury rules, there would then need to be an immediate repayment of £1.64 bn to the Exchequer - a significant slice of the Scottish Executive's annual £30bn budget. The SNP had said it would pay back the money in annual instalments of £40.

Last night, SNP leader Alex Salmond said he would be writing to Sir John Elvidge,Scotland's most senior civil servant, to demand an explanation. "Civil servants are not meant to be the lickspittles of desperate Executive ministers," he said. Salmond also accused Wilson of breaching the ministerial code of conduct by using the civil service for political ends.

The Scottish Ministerial Code states that ministers have "a duty to uphold the political impartiality of the civil service". It adds: Civil servants should not be asked to engage in activities likely to call into question their political impartiality, or to give rise to the criticism that people paid from public funds are being used for party political purposes."

Full article posted in the link below.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1563792006

Since this secret critique has been released into a limited public realm by whatever dubious means, should not we, the general public not have full access to it's contents? So far, we have had only the printed word of a perceived unionist newspaper to verify or not the contents of this no longer secret critique and that this article in "The Hootsmon" could well be regarded by many folk as third party hearsay. Particularily as I do not regard "the Hootsmon" as a civil cervice department or come to think of it a public servant engaged in a public service. Laughing

So let us inspect this civil service report in full, let it be given full public disclosure and not just slipped over to some trusted, favourites in the public domain. Would it not be proper to allow transparency in this matter? After all impartiality is at stake here and the public must have impartiality, mustn't we? Who said what to whom, Who wrote what and from which impeccable sources were the conclusions based on. Will we, the public be entitled to that transparancy and neutrality from the Scottish establishment? Of couse we are but hell will freeze over before that happens. perhaps an honest public servant with a conscience may slip another copy into the general public realm and do theirself and us a public service so that we can rely on more than just hearsay from a manipulating organ of the media. We, the governed public are entitled to be informed of what our public servants are doing in our names and in our our interests. We must have transparency and accountibility and that vexing subject cannot be taken for granted by a concerned, intelligent electorate which are bombarded with spin, disinformation and inuendo from those who are disinclined to be truthful. I do not like being treated as a child and I am afraid that along with many other intelligent adults, resentment is steadily giving way to anger directed at public establishments and governmental bodies which treat its citizens with such dismisive contempt.
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Niall

A Chairadean mhath.

So the Neu Liebour spin machine is at work again. There must be an election in the offing...... Shocked

Its strange that the McCrone report was kept secret for 30 years but not this one. The civil service do these costing exercises all the time when costing out Political manifestos, after all that particular political party may be in power after the election. These exercises we must note are only estimates and there will a whole series of them from the worst case scenario to the best case scenario.

I suspect that some Labour apparachik has taken a worst case scenario and leaked it to a compliant press (knighthoods for editors, anyone?). Scotland on Sunday, your veracity is virtually non existent and this article merely confirms that you are a mouthpiece of the Neu Liebour spin machine. If you want to be taken seriously by the majority of Scots, then start by publishing the truth from a non partisan stance.

Airson Alba!
Niall.

IF Convenor

The real scandal is Labour politicians using civil servants to research party political matters. It's a clear breach of the rules and ought to be punished. It's also scandalous that civil servants went along with this.

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scandal or not - I have always thought the SNPs pledge to scrap student debt as being a bit unrealistic.

SLG

"It warns that, under Treasury rules, there would then need to be an immediate repayment of £1.64 bn to the Exchequer - a significant slice of the Scottish Executive's annual £30bn budget. The SNP had said it would pay back the money in annual instalments of £40 million."

Well that's a load of rubbish for a start.