"According to official figures, obtained by the Tories in parliamentary answers, the number of Executive staff increased from 3,336 in 1999 to 4,410 this year, while the number of media staff grew from 30 in 1997 to 91 in 2004. The answers from ministers also showed that the salaries, National Insurance and pension costs for special advisers - political appointments who are temporary civil servants - increased from £398,062 during 1999-2000 to £704,790 in 2004-5.
Ted Brocklebank, a Tory MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife, said: "These figures reveal the stark truth about government in Scotland. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. No wonder our economy lags behind the rest of the UK when government itself is the biggest business of them all."
Last night, the Executive said the growth in the number of civil servants reflected the increased workload brought about by devolution. A spokesman said: "In the first parliamentary session, between 1999 and 2003, parliament dealt with 50 Executive bills, by comparison to the four or five bills a year that would have been dealt with at Westminster."
Far be it for me to defend the Executive but, as it is manifestly incapable of doing so with any effectiveness, let us look at why the Executive has grown. It is not just the increase in the number of bills being processed. These other issues may also have contributed:
1. There are now 19 Ministers (excluding law officers) compared with 5 or 6 in the old Scottish Office. Each of these Ministers needs a private office and they undertake engagements for which they have to be briefed by Executive civil servants. Furthermore, unlike the good old Scottish Office when Ministers were in London most of the week, the Scottish Executive Ministers are in Scotland nearly all the time.
2. The Scottish Parliament has increased the Executive's workload. Instead of a 50 minute question time to the Secretary of State once every four weeks, there is at least 90 minutes of oral questions every week. Written questions have also increased massively since the days of Westminster. And there are new demands imposed by Scottish Parliamentary Committees - at Westminster there was only the Scottish Select Committee which carried out about one enquiry per year. All of these require civil service preparation - Ministers do not (or should not) answer questions off the cuff.
3. The Scottish Executive budget has also increased massively: from less than £20 Billion in 1999-2000 to more than £26 billion in 2006-07. If you have more money to spend, you need more civil servants to plan, manage and account for it.
4. The Scottish Executive has taken on additional commitments, eg with regard to immigration (via the fresh talent initiative), to external relations (Malawi and so on) and to rail transport. It can be argued that the Executive should not have taken on these extra burdens but if Ministers decide to do so then it has to be accepted that more civil servants will be required to fulfil them.
It is no secret that Executive civil servants have been under increasing pressures of work in recent years. If the Tories want to complain about the growth of the Executive, then they need to be clear about what should stop being done.
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