Scotland's first state-sanctioned St Andrew's holiday is shaping up to be a non-event as most workers seem unlikely to take the day off, it was claimed yesterday.
MSPs backed the idea of a national holiday for November 30 last year when they voted to allow workers to swap one of their bank holidays for a day off on St Andrew's Day.
However, according to some of Scotland's largest employers, few of their workers have bothered to request the day off this Friday.
Neither of Scotland's two leading banks, which between them employ tens of thousands of people, have noticed large numbers opting to take the holiday.
A spokesman for the Royal Bank of Scotland said there was, "no indication of a surge in interest in people taking a holiday on St Andrew's Day this year", while a spokesman for the Bank of Scotland said: "We are not aware of a massive number of inquiries asking to take time off."
A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council, the largest employer of Scotland's 32 local authorities, said: "Our public holidays are well established and there are no plans at present to change this."
When the issue was debated at Holyrood last September, Nationalist Stewart Maxwell, now the Communities and Sports Minister, said an SNP administration would ensure an extra bank holiday was created to celebrate St Andrew's Day.
Alex Salmond also included a commitment to make the day a national holiday when he outlined plans for the first 100 days of an SNP administration at a party conference last April.
But the matter was not mentioned in a document setting out what the SNP had achieved in its first 100 days.
Nevertheless, Friday will mark the beginning of a new Winter Festival stretching from St Andrew's Day to Burn's Night at the end of January, taking in Christmas and Hogmanay along the way.
The festival includes a programme of more than 100 events.
Supporters of a St Andrew's Day national holiday say it will take time to take effect in the workplace.
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