The 16 senior civil servants set to share £1.8m windfall - on top of their pensions

Key points

• Group of Scottish Executive civil servants to be given "golden goodbye"

• Lump sum averaging over 100,000 on top of pension when reaching 60

• Concern over disparity between public and private sector pensions

Key quote

"These sums of money are extraordinary, coming on top of careers that have already been well remunerated. There is a need for a significant review of these schemes. Questions must be asked as to whether they are sustainable in the long term." - JOHN SWINNEY, MSP

Story in full AN ELITE group of senior Scottish Executive civil servants are to share a taxpayer-funded "golden goodbye" of nearly 1.8 million when they retire, The Scotsman can reveal.

On top of pensions of up to 80,000 a year, the 16 civil servants will be given lump sum payments averaging more than 100,000 when they reach the age of 60.

Last night, opposition politicians called for the Executive's pension rules to be reviewed because of the growing disparity between the highest levels of the civil service and the rest of the public and private sectors.

The pension details of members and recent former members of the management group - the Executive's "board of directors" - have been published in the Executive's annual consolidated accounts for the year to 31 March, 2005.

Details of the amounts accumulated for each of the 16, ranging from John Elvidge, Scotland's most senior civil servant, to Dr Kevin Woods, the new head of NHS Scotland, have to be published because of their effect on the Scottish budget.

However, their publication has prompted an angry response from some MSPs after last week's Turner report argued for an increase in the retirement age.

The accounts show that when Sir Muir Russell, the former permanent secretary, reaches 60, he will be entitled to a pension of between 75,000 and 80,000 a year at today's prices, along with a lump sum payment of between 215,000 and 220,000.

Sir Muir, who retired early from the civil service to take up the 178,000-a-year post of Principal of Glasgow University, was heavily involved in the early stages of the Scottish Parliament building project.

Robert Gordon, another civil servant involved in the Holyrood project, will get a pension of between 50,000 and 55,000 a year, plus a lump sum of between 155,000 and 160,000.

Such payments produced an angry reaction last night from John Swinney, the SNP deputy convener of Holyrood's finance committee.

He said: "These sums of money are extraordinary, coming on top of careers that have already been well remunerated. There is a need for a significant review of these schemes. Questions must be asked as to whether they are sustainable in the long term.

"We can all think of projects, including the parliament building, that have not exactly covered the civil service in glory. It seems that members of the public get the pensions pain, whilst civil servants get the pensions gain."

Other MSPs were also critical of the payments, which have to come out of taxes because the civil service pension scheme is "unfunded" - the money does not come from contributions made by its former members but from the current Executive budget.

Derek Brownlee, a Tory MSP on the finance committee, said: "These figures will go down like a lead balloon with the public. Most people do not even realise what their pension is likely to be. Many people do not even have a pension. This raises the basic issue of fairness when people who cannot afford their own pensions find out that they are paying to fund other people's generous pensions."

An Executive spokesman said: "The civil service is reserved to the UK government and the terms and conditions are negotiated on a UK level. Since devolution, the demands on ministers and civil servants have increased dramatically. The remuneration is appropriate for the demands of the job and the workload expected of civil servants."

Jim Caldwell, the Scottish secretary of the senior civil servants' union the FDA - formerly the First Division Association - launched a staunch defence of the pension arrangements.

He said all the evidence on civil service pay was that it was lower than in the private sector, and when civil servants had argued for pay rises, the previous Tory government had said their pay was lower because they had a "gold pension" scheme.

"It is not an argument that we would necessarily subscribe to, but that was the argument they made," Mr Caldwell said.

He went on: "The Tories cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that there is this big lump sum in the pension scheme, when their party in government said that civil service pay was depressed but was enhanced by the pension benefits."

Mr Caldwell cited senior figures in the financial world, including Sir Fred Goodwin, chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, who, he said, benefited from substantial contributions from their company into their pension schemes.