Alex Salmond and the new Scots administration were today called upon to "urgently upgrade" their arrangements for enabling staff to raise allegations of malpractice after the Scottish Executive came second-bottom in a whistleblowing league table.

The worst performer in the list drawn up by Public Concern at Work (PCAW) was the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, which, the independent charity pointed out, was the department that "sets the standards for how public bodies behave".

Assessed on a range of criteria since last August when Labour's Jack McConnell was in charge, the Scottish Executive managed to score just four points out of a maximum of 28, rating zero on such things as openness and confidentiality.

The Cabinet Office fared even worse with just three. The top-rated department with 25 points was the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Guy Dehn, PCAW's director, said: "If this was the Premiership, the Cabinet Office would be relegated and a top-rating local authority would be taking its place next season.

"As there are no sanctions in government for such a woeful performance, it is now down to incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Civil Service chief Sir Gus O'Donnell to insist that the Cabinet Office practises what it preaches if it is to earn its place at the heart of government."

He pointed out that apart from the Cabinet Office's poor performance the executive was "languishing" behind all the departments in England.

Mr Dehn told The Herald: "One of the problems we've experienced in Scotland is that there's less of a positive approach; the default argument is that someone who blows the whistle is pursuing their own agenda rather than doing something in the public interest.

"Mr Salmond should wake up the executive to the virtue of whistleblowing because it will make his government more open with greater quality and accountability."

In its report, published today, the charity recommended the executive "should urgently upgrade their whistleblowing arrangements".

PCAW claimed there had long been a marked indifference at the heart of Whitehall to embrace the 1998 Public Interest Disclosure Act, the law Westminster passed to protect whistleblowers and which applies to the whole of the UK.

It said that while the new Civil Service code - the guide on how civil servants should behave - now expressly referred to the whistleblowing legislation, its review showed there was still a "lack of coherence and comprehension at the heart of government" about how officials should be encouraged to question and challenge wrongdoing.

"The 20th century culture that it was better to keep quiet - whatever the risks to the public or ministers - still holds strong across much of Whitehall," insisted Mr Dehn.

The charity argued that the central advice on whistleblowing in the Directory of Civil Service Guidance needed to be overhauled so that it provided accurate and helpful guidance to departments on the statutory regime and the new Civil Service code.

PCAW also recommended that each year all departments, including the devolved executives, should assess staff awareness of and confidence in their whistleblowing arrangements and review how they were working in practice.