The Scottish Conservatives have accused the SNP of “breathtaking hypocrisy” over rising civil service wage costs.
It comes as the Scottish Government has been seeking to make savings while its purse strings remain tight.
However, data obtained by the Tories has revealed the civil service wage bill has risen by £42m in the past two and a half years.
This represents an increase of 10%, without including wage inflation that has occurred in that period.
The data revealed that the number of civil servants who are employed on the highest pay bands has risen from just over 2,200 in March 2022 to more than 2,700 in September 2024.
Shadow finance secretary Craig Hoy is set to challenge the Scottish Government to explain what his party described as “spiralling costs” in a debate on the Scottish budget today.
The Scottish Conservatives have also criticised the Scottish Government for not implementing any voluntary or compulsory redundancies in the core civil service since 2021.
However, the total workforce for the Scottish Government has fallen in the last two financial years.
Ahead of the debate, 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.
“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.”
Finance secretary Shona Robison said in her response to Craig Hoy’s question about civil service employment bands across the last two and half years: “The total workforce for the Scottish Government has reduced in each of the last two financial years by 0.4% and 3%.
“To date the Scottish Government have prioritised the reduction of contingent workers, including more expensive contractors, and have done so by 40%. The 2025-26 Budget included a commitment to a reduction in the number of permanent civil servants in the core Scottish Government in the 2025-26 financial year.”
This article first appeared on CSW's sister title Holyrood