Except that's not what his very own reportis saying:
Sir John Elvidge, the Scottish Executive's most senior civil servant, has revealed he has started a "substantial exercise" to examine how the 15,000-strong department could become an autonomous organisation.
The Scottish Executive is still part of the UK-wide civil service structure and a key SNP election pledge was to follow the example of Northern Ireland, which has a separate body.
Which is bad enough, but still a long way short of Alex declaring UDI.
3 comments:
Hmmm
I do not know what they are worrying about. In the USA there are fifty state civil services as well as the Federal one. Ditto 16 civil services in Germany for the Laendar and one for the Federal government.
In Canada the civil services are more conjoined. Whilst there are provincial civil services, the Federal Civil Service provides services for the provincial government. Most notably Revenue Canada which carries out the bulk of collection of provincial direct and indirect taxes for a fee rather than the provinces (cept of course Quebec which is out of the scheme) setting up their own tax collection apparatus.
Ditto policing. Only Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland provide their own police services. The others contract in the Federal controlled Mounties.
Obviously in these countries the various civil services co-operate with one another.
At the end of the day local councils in Scotland have control over the appointment and general conditions of their officials than the Scottish government. Maybe Johnson, Cochrane and co want road sweepers appointed by a national board of Lanarkshire councillor types!
It's was the hysterical and sloppy headline I most objected to.
Interesting character, Sir John Elvidge. More here.
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