The Scottish Conservatives have accused the SNP of “showing contempt for hard-pressed Scots” after new figures revealed the “staggering” increase in civil servant spending over the last eight years.
Analysis by the party shows the spending has almost doubled in real terms over the last eight years.
Between 2016 and 2024 the amount spent on Scottish Government salaries soared to nearly £500m – a 91 per cent rise in real terms – while workforce costs rose to over £600m, an increase of more than 100 per cent.
The number of Scottish Government employees also hit over 9,000 last year, a rise of 71% since 2016, while they have also tripled the spending on high-pay grade civil servants.
Shadow finance and local government secretary Craig Hoy says Scots who are paying the highest rates of income tax will be “appalled” that they are paying for an increasingly bloated state, while public services continue to worsen.
Scottish Conservative shadow cabinet secretary for finance and local government Craig Hoy said: “The SNP’s big state has spiralled in size in recent years and shows no sign of stopping.
“The staggering increase in spending in relation to civil servants in recent years sums up their contempt for hard-pressed Scots.
“They will be appalled that they are paying the highest rates of income tax in the UK to help build an ever-growing army of civil servants, with workforce costs hitting over £600 million alone, while simultaneously our public services worsen.
“This level of unsustainable spending is clearly harmful for Scotland’s economy, which is already performing poorly under the SNP.
“While we need a civil service to deliver public services, taxpayers are getting a raw deal with this increasingly bloated SNP version.
“Only the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood are determined to put an end to this sort of reckless spending and calling for the tax burden to fall to help grow our economy.”
Notes to editors
Total yearly Scottish Government workforce salaries rose by 91% in real terms from 2016 to 2024, reaching nearly £500 million. The sum of the multiples of the FTE employee count for each Scottish Government civil service grade and the mean average salary for that grade was £193,117,364 as of March 2016 and £469,063,959 as of March 2024. Adjusting for inflation by the UK GDP deflator to 2016 prices, the latter becomes £368,558,152 – a 90.8% increase on the March 2016 figure. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 3 April 2025, available on request; UK Government GDP Deflator, 28 March 2025, link).
Total yearly Scottish Government workforce costs rose by 105% from 2016 to 2024 in real terms, reaching over £600 million. The sum of the multiples of the FTE employee count for each Scottish Government civil service grade and the mean average annual cost of employment (salary, eNIC, and pension contribution) for each grade was £236,411,452 as of March 2016 and £615,513,248 as of March 2024. Adjusted to 2016 prices the latter is £483,627,916 – a 104.57% increase on March 2016. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 3 April 2025, available on request; UK Government GDP Deflator, 28 March 2025, link).
In the last 8 years, the SNP have more than doubled the number of high-pay grade civil servants in the Scottish Government. Between March 2016 and March 2024, the number of Scottish Government employees graded as ‘C1’, ‘C2’, or ‘C3’ increased from 1101 to 2776, a 152% increase. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 3 April 2025, available on request).
In the last 8 years, the SNP have more than tripled Scottish Government spending on high-pay grade civil servants. Between March 2016 and March 2024, Scottish Government expense on civil servants graded as ‘C1’, ‘C2’, or ‘C3’ went from £75,294,721 to £256,672,214, an increase of 241%. Adjusting for inflation by the UK GDP deflator, this was an increase of 168%. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 3 April 2025, available on request; UK Government GDP Deflator, 28 March 2025, link).
The number of Scottish Government employees increased by 71% from 2016 to 2024. As of March 2016, the Scottish Government had 5,385 employees, and as of March 2024 they had 9,222 employees. This is an increase of 3,837 – a 71% increase. (Scottish Government FOI Response, 3 April 2025, available on request).
The public sector in Scotland makes up a much larger proportion of the workforce than the public sector in England. Scotland has around 590,000 public sector workers as of 2024, which is 22% of the workforce. In England, 17% of the total workforce is in the public sector. Scottish Government and local council workers make up 92% of Scotland’s public sector workers. (IFS, 18 February 2025, link).
Public sector employment in Scotland has grown significantly since 2017, having grown by 56,000, 11%, from 2017 to 2024. As a share of the workforce, public sector employment in Scotland has grown by a larger fraction since 2017 (by 2.5 percentage points, from 19.6% to 22.1%) than in any other part of the UK with the exception of Wales (where it grew by 2.6 percentage points). (IFS, 18 February 2025, link).
Under the SNP, each public sector worker in Scotland costs the taxpayer more than in the rest of the UK. Average pay for public sector workers is 5% higher in Scotland than the UK average per hour. This divergence has occurred since 2019, when median hourly public sector pay was equivalent between Scotland and the UK average. (IFS, 18 February 2025, link).
High public sector wage costs under the SNP are not delivering workforce retention benefits. The IFS state ‘We do not find any evidence that larger increases in public sector pay in Scotland in recent years have boosted the retention of public sector workers.’ (IFS, 18 February 2025, link).