Is Whitehall at last baring its teeth in response to the Scottish government and SNP’s separatism push? A look into how the Scottish civil service conducts itself is long overdue.
Scotland Secretary Alister Jack confirmed earlier this week that senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office are examining whether their Edinburgh counterparts should be allowed to keep working on plans for independence following last week’s Supreme Court ruling. Unless Whitehall intervenes or the Scottish government junks its plans, around £1.5 million worth of taxpayer money will reportedly continue to be spent each year on the team of 25 civil servants tasked with providing a revised prospectus for separation.
Given the unit’s risible output to date (remember the reheated currency plans which have wilted at the first exposure to scrutiny), you’d think more cerebral nationalists would be demanding a refund. However, in keeping with the histrionics unleashed following last week’s ruling, this has been portrayed by nationalists as another provocation towards ‘Scottish democracy’.
After all, under the current legislation, it is a matter for the Scottish government to do what it sees fit with the money it receives from Westminster. However, following the Supreme Court ruling about the competencies of the Scottish government vis a vis the constitution, this money is in effect being spent on what will amount to the SNP manifesto at the next general election, given Sturgeon’s pledge to turn it into a referendum on the future of the union.
While this is not a formal review, it’s an opportunity for Whitehall to shake itself out of the ‘devolve and forget’ mindset which has blighted its approach to Scotland for too long, and to show that the days of internalising the nationalist interpretation of events is also at an end.
Many will see the clear farce at play: UK government money – albeit funds which have been allocated to a devolved administration – is being used to further the cause of breaking up the country. Very few countries would stand for this. It is as clear a symptom as any of the casual approach towards the Union that governments of various shades have exhibited since devolution came on stream in the late 1990s.
Alongside the waste of money – unless, of course, you are a unionist pleased with the ruling – generated by the Scottish government and SNP’s pursuit of the Supreme Court case, it will no doubt stick in the craw of many Scots that while nationalist ministers plead poverty elsewhere, funds can always be found for constitutional chicanery.
While it is only £1.5 million – at a time when teachers have been striking, ferries aren’t running and cuts are being made elsewhere – surely the money, and indeed manpower, could be deployed more effectively to protect the nationalists’ beloved public sector? Little wonder a group of unionist businessmen are considering a legal challenge should government time and money continue to be expended on a party-political matter.
Sue Gray (of partygate fame) will be involved in the Cabinet Office inquiry, which should be enough to send a shiver down the corridors of St Andrew’s House, the Scottish government’s stolid looking Edinburgh headquarters.
What she and others are likely to find on Calton Hill is an institutional culture where government and party are almost indistinguishable. The devolved political classes in Edinburgh are keen to tell each other that they are somehow different from those ‘down there in Westminster’. But if Westminster is a village, then Holyrood and its environs are a cosy house party. This is especially true of relations between civil servants and ministers in Edinburgh.
Academics earlier this year noted that Scottish officials have not lodged formal objections to any ministerial spending decision in more than 15 years, compared with 46 since 2010 at UK level. While some Conservatives would no doubt fantasise about such a level of synergy between ministers and officials, the fact no senior official in that period has stuck their head above the parapet to challenge Scottish ministers speaks to an unhealthy culture.
All of this is rendered against a background of sustained criticism from Audit Scotland about how the Scottish government and its agencies spend money and anecdotes aplenty about a civil service culture which is enthusiastically performative in its support for the objectives of the governing party. To prove the point, the Daily Record has obtained footage of the Scottish government’s director-general of strategy and external affairs, Ken Thomson, joking that the only reason ‘strategy’ is included in his job title is that it ‘gets me through some doors in Whitehall – and then they discover that what I’m actually there to talk about is breaking up the Kingdom’.
Reports suggest that the UK government wants to take a softly, softly approach to Scotland off the back of last week’s Supreme Court decision – while watching the nationalist coalition rip itself apart. But this situation merits a tougher response. It is time to have a serious discussion about how government works in Scotland and, crucially, put an end to what is effectively one arm of the UK state apparatus being weaponised against the other.
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