Leader: Civil servants have a duty always to be impartial

HAS Sir Peter Housden, Scotland’s top civil servant, “gone native”? In an extraordinary development, all three of Scotland’s opposition party leaders have made an official complaint that he has broken the civil service code supposed to ensure he acts impartially.

At the heart of the controversy are internal memos Sir Peter sent to civil servants in the wake of the Scottish parliamentary election in May, asserting that “Calman and the status quo now seem lost in the mists of time”. Officials were urged to “embark on a journey of constitutional reform”, while an internet link was provided to an article in The Scotsman by an academic sympathetic to the SNP and attacking “Unionist fundamentalism”.

As if this was not enough, he also recommended officials go to see a play depicting an English army of occupation attempt to impose itself on Scotland.

In the immediate flush of the SNP’s historic victory, it is understandable that Sir Peter may have wished to signal to his colleagues, as if they were not already aware, that the political order had changed and that Scotland would now have an SNP administration with an overall majority. He may also have wished to signal to his political masters that he personally was well aware of it.

That is understandable – up to a point. For the public looks to its civil servants to be impartial and above politics, however emotional the moment – indeed, especially at an emotional moment. For the fact remains that a substantial majority of Scots who voted did not vote for the SNP; who do not see lurid parallels with an English army of occupation; and that this was a time, less for partisan emotionalism at the head of the civil service than for a politic regard to the dangers of an over-weening majority party: a concern that framed and shaped the Scotland Act.

While it is flattering to see that Sir Peter is such an enthusiastic Scotsman reader as to forward e-mail links to our articles, might it not have occurred to him to append other articles that we carry, expressing alternative points of view, so that his colleagues would have the benefit of a broader summation?

As for his recommendation on what plays to go and see, that is surely a matter for personal conversation and discussion and inappropriate for a round-robin note from his official desk bearing his name and title.

However, it is the implied dismissal of the Scotland Bill currently before the Scottish and UK parliaments that will create the greatest unease. However much Sir Peter may personally feel it is “lost in the mists of time”, this is the bill currently before two parliaments and which must be accorded due considersation.

Constitutional process may be a dull thing, and sometimes lagging the swings of elections. But it is for the representatives of parliament, not the head of the civil service, to decide whether or not to embark “on a journey of constitutional reform”.