| Scottish Government Riaghaltas na h-Alba |
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| Logo of the Scottish Government | |
| Government overview | |
| Formed | 1999 |
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Headquarters | St Andrew's House, Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Annual budget | £29,266.8 million (2010/11) |
| Minister responsible | The Rt Hon. Alex Salmond MSP, First Minister |
| Government executive | Sir Peter Housden, Permanent Secretary |
| Website | |
| www.scotland.gov.uk | |
| Scotland |
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The Scottish Government (Scottish Gaelic: Riaghaltas na h-Alba) is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was established in 1999 as the Scottish Executive, from the extant Scottish Office, and the term Scottish Executive (or Administration) remains its legal name under the Scotland Act 1998.[1] Following the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, the term Executive was changed to Government by the Scottish National Party administration in 2007.[2] The Scotland Bill (2011) contains a clause which, if the Bill passes into law, will makes this change legal in statute.
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The Scottish Government is responsible in Scotland for all issues that are not explicitly reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster by Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998; such devolved matters include NHS Scotland, education, justice and policing, rural affairs, economic development and transport.
The Scottish Government has the responsibility for an annual budget of more than £27 billion in the financial year 2005-2006, rising to more than £30 billion in 2007-2008.[3]
The Government is led by the First Minister. The Scottish Parliament nominates one of its Members to be appointed as First Minister by the Queen. He is assisted by various Cabinet Secretaries (Ministers) with individual portfolios and remits, who are appointed by him with the approval of Parliament. Junior Scottish Ministers are similarly appointed to assist Cabinet Secretaries in their work. The Scottish Law Officers, the Lord Advocate and Solicitor General can be appointed from outside the Parliament's membership, but are subject to its approval. The First Minister, the Cabinet Secretaries and the Scottish Law Officers are the Members of the Scottish Government. They are collectively known as the "Scottish Ministers".
The members of the Government have substantial influence over legislation in Scotland, putting forward the majority of Bills that are successful in becoming Acts of the Scottish Parliament.[4]
Since 2007, the Scottish Government has been formed by the Scottish National Party who are the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, although prior to 2011 they did not possess an overall majority. In the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish National Party won the first overall majority in the history of the Scottish Parliament. The current First Minister is Alex Salmond.
The structure of the ministerial team used by the Scottish National Party (SNP) after their election victory in May 2007 differs from the previous Administration. The nomenclature of Cabinet Secretary has been introduced. The Cabinet Secretaries and junior Ministers are:[5][6][7]
The Scottish Cabinet normally meets weekly on Tuesday afternoons in Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister. It is the supreme collective decision-making body of the Scottish Government. The Cabinet consists of the Scottish Ministers (Cabinet Secretaries), excluding the Scottish Law Officers (the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General). The Lord Advocate attends meetings of the Cabinet only when requested by the First Minister, and he is not formally a member.[8]
The Cabinet is supported by the Cabinet Secretariat, which is based at St Andrew's House.
There are three sub-committees of Cabinet:[9]
The main headquarters building of the Scottish Government is St Andrew's House, on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. Some other Government departments are based at Victoria Quay in Leith, Pentland House in Gorgie, Saughton House on Broomhouse Drive and Atlantic Quay on Broomielaw, Glasgow. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has its head offices, and the Lord Advocate's Chambers, at Chambers Street in central Edinburgh.
There are numerous other Edinburgh properties occupied by the Scottish Government. Security Branch is based in the old Governor's House on the site of the former Calton Gaol, next door to St Andrew's House on Regent Road. The Government Car Service for Scotland also has its Edinburgh offices on Bonnington Road, in Leith. Other offices are scattered around central Edinburgh, including Bute House on Charlotte Square, the official residence of the First Minister.
New St Andrew's House, behind Edinburgh's St. James' Centre, was once a large Scottish Office building, which was occupied from 1973 until 1997, when the last remaining staff moved to Victoria Quay.
The Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department is located in central Glasgow, and the Government has other offices across Scotland. The First Minister has use of the Scotland Office building, Dover House in Whitehall when necessary.[10]
The Scottish Government has a European Union representative office, located at Rond-Point Robert Schuman in Brussels, Belgium, which forms a part of the United Kingdom Permanent Representation to the European Union.[11] The Scottish Government also maintains an office within the British Embassy in Washington, DC, and has accredited representatives within the British Embassy in Beijing.
The term Scottish Government also denotes the civil service supporting Scottish Ministers. According to the most recent (2006) reports, there are 15,263 civil servants working in core Scottish Government departments and agencies.[12] The civil service is a matter reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament (rather than devolved to Holyrood): Scottish Government civil servants work within the rules and customs of the United Kingdom civil service, but "owe their loyalty to the devolved administration rather than the UK government".[13]
The Permanent Secretary supports the First Minister and the Cabinet. The current incumbent is Sir Peter Housden who took over from Sir John Elvidge in July 2010, who in turn took over from Sir Muir Russell in 2003. Sir Peter Housden is the most senior civil servant in Scotland and heads the Strategic Board of the Scottish Government.
The Permanent Secretary is a member of the Home Civil Service, and therefore takes part in the Permanent Secretaries Management Group of the UK Civil Service[14] and is answerable to the most senior civil servant in the UK, the Cabinet Secretary, for his professional conduct. He remains, however, at the direction of the Scottish Ministers.
In December 2010, the Directorates of the Scottish Government were re-organised, each one being headed by a Director-General (DG) .
Supporting these directorates are a variety of other corporate service teams and professional groups.[15]
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service provides the independent public prosecution service for Scotland, and is a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. The department is headed by the Lord Advocate, who under the Scottish legal system is responsible for prosecution, along with the area Procurators fiscal.
The Strategic Board is the 'top table' for the organisation. It consists of the Permanent Secretary along with the five Director-Generals, the Chief Scientific Officer, the Chief Economic Adviser and three non Executive Directors.[16] The Board is responsible for overseeing the achievement of the Government's five strategic objectives listed below.
| Occupation | Name |
|---|---|
| Permanent Secretary | Sir Peter Housden |
| Director General Finance | Alyson Stafford |
| Director General Learning and Justice | Leslie Evans |
| Director General Enterprise and Environment | Mike Neilson (Acting) |
| Director-General Health and Social Care and Chief Executive of NHS Scotland | Derek Feeley (Acting) |
| Director-General Governance and Communities | Paul Gray |
| Chief Scientific Officer | Professor Anne Glover |
| Chief Economic Adviser | Dr. Andrew Goudie |
| Non-Executive Director | Professor William Bound |
| Non-Executive Director | Sandy Begbie |
| Non-Executive Director | Heather Logan[16] |
In 2007, the Scottish Government set for itself an overall purpose:
Each Director General leads the task on delivering one of the Government's strategic objectives, resulting from this purpose:
In order to deliver its work, there are 17 Executive Agencies established by Ministers as part of government departments, or as departments in their own right, to carry out a discrete area of work. These include, for example, the Scottish Prison Service and Transport Scotland. Executive agencies are staffed by civil servants.
There are two non-Ministerial departments that form part of the Scottish Administration, and therefore the devolved administration, but answer directly to the Scottish Parliament rather than to Ministers: these are the General Register Office for Scotland and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
The Scottish Government is also responsible for a large number of non-departmental public bodies. These include executive NDPBs (e.g. Scottish Enterprise); advisory NDPBs (e.g. the Scottish Law Commission); tribunals (e.g. the Children’s Panel and Additional Support Needs Tribunals for Scotland); and nationalised industries (e.g. Scottish Water). These are staffed by public servants, rather than civil servants.
The Scottish Government is also responsible for some other public bodies that are not classed as non-departmental public bodies, such as NHS Boards, Visiting Committees for Scottish Penal Establishments or HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland.
In January 2001, the then First Minister Henry McLeish suggested changing the official name of the executive arm from "Scottish Executive" to "Scottish Government". The reaction from the UK Government and from some Labour Party members and Scottish Labour MPs was allegedly hostile.[17] This reaction was in contrast to a 2001 public survey by then-Labour chief whip Tom McCabe, which showed that only 29% of the Scottish public wanted the title Scottish Executive to remain.[18]
Scottish politicians, including the Labour First Minister, had often referred to the Executive as the "government" and this trend increased following the 2007 election, when the SNP took office and Labour were in opposition for the first time. On 2 September 2007, the SNP minority government announced that the Scottish Executive was to be re-branded as the "Scottish Government".
The renaming was decided unilaterally by the minority government; as a consequence, the SNP was criticised by the three Unionist opposition parties for acting without allowing for parliamentary scrutiny, debate or approval of their plan. However, the term "Scottish Government" has become common usage by all such parties.[19]
"Scottish Executive" remains the legal name according to the wording of section 44(1) of the Scotland Act 1998.[18] Neither the Scottish Executive nor the Scottish Parliament are able to change the legal name by themselves, as this will require the UK Parliament to pass an amendment to the Scotland Act. Clause 15 of the Scotland Bill 2010-11 will, if passed, formally change the name of the Executive to the "Scottish Government".[20]
The UK Government has, in the vast majority of cases, adopted the new term of "Government",[21] while in some cases using the phrase "Scottish Administration".[22] The official Gaelic title, "Riaghaltas na h-Alba" has always meant "Government of Scotland".
At the same time that the Scottish Government began to use its new name, a new emblem was adopted. The earlier version featured the old name and a version of the Royal Arms for Scotland, but without the motto, the helm, the mantling, the crest, the war-cry above the crest, or the flags of Scotland and England carried by the supporters. In the rendering used, both supporters appeared to be crowned with the Crown of Scotland, whereas in the Royal Arms, the Scottish unicorn is usually shown crowned with the Scottish Crown, and the English lion with St Edward's Crown.
In the September 2007 rebranding, this depiction of the Royal Arms was replaced by one of the Flag of Scotland. However, the Royal Arms are still used by the Government for some official documents, such as directions issued in exercise of powers provided by legislation.[23]
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