More than £20m has been allocated to cover redundancy payments at Scottish Enterprise, The Herald understands.

The figure, placed by some sources at nearer £30m, excludes staff who will transfer seamlessly to any new national training agency.

Scottish ministers have been pressing ahead with proposals to downsize SE as part of a "de-cluttering" of the enterprise network.

A senior executive at Scottish Enterprise stressed last night that no figures could be put on any final redundancy bill because the government's review of the enterprise network was still under way.

It is thought that, of the 2500 workforce, 1000 would be transferred to the new agency and some 1300 would remain with SE. This would mean that about 200 people would be made redundant.

The suggestion that the number of jobs under threat and the money earmarked for the cost of redundancies meant this amounted to more than £100,000 a post was dismissed by a spokeswoman. She said the final job losses were not yet known, but she accepted that under public sector terms there would be a price to pay.

The SE shake-up has seen the agency's training functions stripped out and handed to a new combined training and careers body.

At the same time, there is already political pressure building up on Jack Perry as chief executive of what will now be a radically slimmed-down body, which will have its operating budget slashed by one-third.

It also emerged yesterday that the national development and training body is also facing a counter-suit from two senior executives, suspended recently for alleged malpractice.

The two, who were suspended for more than a month, are now understood to have responded with a grievance complaint against other senior figures.

An SE spokeswoman said: "Isobel Brown and Charlene O'Connor are still suspended. They continue to defend their position vigorously."

But The Herald understands that this vigorous defence has moved to attack, with several fellow senior executives at SE being cited under the agency's grievance procedures.

The seniority of the two - Ms O'Connor was senior skills director and Ms Brown was her deputy - takes the grievance up to the level of Ms O'Connor's boss, Lena Wilson, who is just one step down from Mr Perry.

The Herald first reported two months ago that the two senior executives on the training side of SE had been abruptly marched out of the building and placed on suspension over allegations of alleged misconduct.

We later reported allegations from whistleblowers in the training industry that this involved contracts that had been awarded by the senior SE executive to friends.

But Ms O'Connor and Ms Brown have not only denied the allegations, they believe that since an invitation from SE to the police resulted in an opinion that there was no case worth investigating, it is time for them to go on the attack.

The fact that police have declined to investigate will strengthen the hand of the two executives, whose supporters say they came under fire simply for doing their job of trying to improve the quality of training overseen by SE.