Booze-ups and breweries

It's no fun being a senior civil servant in the Scottish Executive; it's even less fun being a junior civil servant in that august institution. The Scotsman reports:

"SCOTLAND'S leading civil servants have been savaged by their staff for bad financial management, a lack of leadership and the poor running of the country's government, The Scotsman has learned.
The results of a confidential employee survey, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, represent a damning critique of the performance of Scotland's senior government officials.
The survey shows that:
• only 27 per cent of civil servants feel the Scottish Executive makes good use of money;
• only 52 per cent of civil servants in Scotland believe that any checks are made before money is spent;
• only 28 per cent feel there is a culture of sound financial management.
The survey reveals for the first time what the 7,000 staff who work for the Executive and its agencies in Scotland actually feel about the way the government is run. "

It is not surprising that the Scottish Executive staff are less than gruntled. I understand that their pay packets have yet to be boosted by the pay rise they should have received last August.