'Breathtaking hypocrisy': SNP government's 'staggering' wages bill revealed

The Scottish Conservatives have branded the increased spending “staggering” with more than 2,700 civil servants now employed in the highest pay band.

But SNP finance secretary Shona Robison has stressed the total workforce for the Scottish Government has reduced in each of the last two financial years.

In her draft Budget for 2025-26, Ms Robison included a £30m “invest to save” fund, which she claimed will pay for the “costs of reform, drive out efficiencies, improve productivity and ensure longer term sustainability”.

The Conservatives have criticised the Scottish Government after not a single redundancy – voluntary or compulsory – has taken place in the core civil service since 2021.

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Figures obtained from the Scottish Government show a 10 per cent rise in wages between 2022 and 2024, with the wage inflation not even included in the figures.

The total cost of the salaries of Scottish Government core employees stood at £403 million in March 2022, increasing to £445 million by September 2024.

The number of civil servants in the top pay grade in March 2022 was 2,278, which increased to 2,776 by September 2024.

Scottish Conservative shadow finance secretary, Craig Hoy, said: “This staggering rise in the cost of government demonstrates the SNP’s breathtaking hypocrisy.

“While everyone else is being told to tighten their belts, the SNP can always find more taxpayers’ money to spend on their own government.

“It is astonishing that this rise does not even account for the wage inflation that will have occurred in that time, meaning the true rise in the total wage bill will be higher.”

He added: “Far from tackling these spiralling costs, the SNP has presided over a huge expansion in the number of middle and senior civil servants.

“While they make cuts in public services and hammer households and businesses with ever-higher taxes, the nats have made no effort to reform their own workforce, or to tackle waste.

“We now urgently need a common-sense approach that will address the bloated government payroll, cut out excess spending and lower the tax burden on ordinary Scots.”

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Ms Robison said that following her draft Budget for the 2025-26 being presented, the government was “considering the impact” of the wage figures “this for workforce projections in 25-26”.

She added: “These workforce projections will be regularly monitored, reviewed and updated over the course of the financial year to ensure services are delivered effectively and affordably for the people of Scotland.

“The total workforce for the Scottish Government has reduced in each of the last two financial years by 0.4 per cent and 3 per cent.

“To date the Scottish Government have prioritised the reduction of contingent workers, including more expensive contractors, and have done so by 40 per cent. The 25-26 Budget

included a commitment to a reduction in the number of permanent civil servants in the core Scottish Government in the 25-26 financial year.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Since March 2022 there has been a 2.7 per cent reduction to the total Scottish Government workforce. This has been driven by substantially reducing the number of contractors and consultants utilised by the government, with these staff down by 39 per cent over the same period.

“We have additional measures in place to manage the size of the workforce – including recruitment controls to support public service reform. We are working in partnership with trade unions and across the public sector on reform so that services remain fiscally sustainable and improve outcomes for the people and communities that need them most.”

Meanwhile, Scotland’s public finance watchdog has warned councils are having to make savings and draw on reserves as their funding is cut.

The Accounts Commission found that councils' total revenue and income fell in 2023/24, including another real-terms decrease in revenue funding from the Scottish Government.

It said that councils are increasingly reliant on identifying savings, which becomes progressively more difficult year-on-year, and again used reserves to remain within their agreed budgets.

Councils closed a budget gap of £759 million during 2023/24, but this required them to make further and deeper savings.

The watchdog warned that using reserves and other non-recurring measures is "unsustainable and is only a temporary plug for a budget gap in that one year".

In 2023/24, the Scottish Government allocated councils total revenue and capital funding of £13.7 billion.

The commission said the financial outlook for councils remains challenging, despite an increase in overall revenue and capital funding for them in 2024/25 and the Scottish Government's budget proposals in December 2024 indicating a further real-terms uplift in funding for 2025/26.

It noted that there is still uncertainty as to how increased employers' national insurance contributions, announced by the UK Government, will be funded.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) estimates these will be an additional £265 million cost pressure for councils in 2025/26.