SNP under fire for giving ministers £20k pay rise
The SNP leader has come under fire for giving all of his ministers a £20,000-a-year pay rise.
John Swinney quietly lifted a long-standing freeze on ministerial salaries earlier this month.
The lifting of the pay freeze, introduced by former SNP leader, the late Alex Salmond, back in 2009, means that all ministers will receive an extra £19,126 in pay from this month.
However, the Scottish First Minister exempted himself from the pay rise after being asked about the increase by the Scottish Mail on Sunday, the newspaper claimed.
The decision means that annual salaries for Cabinet secretaries stand at about £116,000, while junior ministers will be paid more than £100,000.
Critics called for the decision to be immediately reversed amid a cost of living crisis and buckling public services in Scotland.
Craig Hoy, the Scottish Tory shadow finance secretary, branded the SNP's performance in office 'uniformly dismal'.
He said: 'Nationalist politicians have made a mess of everything they touch – our NHS, education, housing, policing and transport – while stifling the economy, pushing through savage cuts and making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK.'
John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, weighed in: 'Scots will be absolutely seething at the way in which ministers are stuffing their pockets with extra taxpayer cash all while frontline services are spluttering and the tax burden is soaring.
'The public realm is in a miserable state in Scotland, with politicians abjectly failing to deliver on voters' priorities, while also hammering taxpayers with some of the highest bills in the UK.'
Blanket council tax rise
The pay rise follows a decision by all 32 of Scotland's councils to raise council tax for the 2025/26 financial year, with increases ranging from 6 to 15 per cent.
The Scottish Government's Budget set out how all Scots workers earning over £30,318 would be forced to pay more income tax than elsewhere in the UK from April 1.
Meanwhile, a freezing of thresholds means almost a quarter of Scots workers, some 780,000 people, are now paying one of the top three income tax rates as of the beginning of this month.
Since April 1, 2009, ministers have been deducting the difference between their current 'net' salary entitlement, made up of both their MSP pay and their ministerial pay, and their 2009 entitlement – and donated that surplus directly into the public purse.
One former minister reportedly said that because MSP wages were rising over time - but ministers had a freeze on their net pay – the salary of an average MSP was catching up with ministers' wages, despite the latter's workload being far greater.
The disclosures follow reports last week that the salary bill for the Scottish civil service has almost doubled in eight years to almost half a billion pounds. The Scottish government was said to have had 9,222 employees in March 2024, compared with 5,385 in March 2016.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'Ministerial and MSP salaries are set and paid by the Scottish Parliament. The MSP element of pay for ministers for 2025-26 will be identical to that of other MSPs.
'The Ministerial element of pay has been frozen for 16 years at 2008-09 levels and this will remain in place for 2025-26.
'The First Minister has made clear that he will forego the equalisation of the MSP element of his salary in order to avoid any perception that he benefits from his own decisions.'
Last month, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority confirmed an MP's salary in Westminster will rise by 2.8 per cent from April 1. It means the salary of an MP for 2025-26 is £93,904.
According to Scottish Government figures published last month, average monthly pay in Scotland was £2,486 in January, up 5.2 per cent on last year. Adjusting for inflation, however, earnings grew by 2.2 per cent in real terms.
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