The number of "czars" in Scottish public life is set to be slashed under proposals by the independent expert appointed to look at the number of commissioners and ombudsmen.

Professor Lorne Crerar, a leading civil lawyer, has told ministers that the current system is expensive, complex, riddled with duplication and poor at handling public complaints.

Mr Crerar was asked to look at the proliferation of so-called czars last summer and submitted his initial findings in late March, just as the last administration went into purdah because of the impending election.

As a result of his damning interim conclusions, Mr Crerar states: "There is a real opportunity now, within the context of public service reform, to improve the structure, processes and outcomes of external scrutiny. The recommendations from the review will aim to deliver this."

The Finance Secretary, John Swinney, has committed the administration to slimmed-down working with fewer departments and a more joined-up approach.

This fits well with the suggestions made in Professor Crerar's interim report.

A spokeswoman for Mr Swinney said last night: "The new Scottish government is determined to de-clutter the public sector. We want to focus resources to better meet the needs of frontline services.

"The consideration of public bodies and agencies will be included in our work to ensure public services run more efficiently, work smarter and are less bureaucratic.

"The new Scottish government awaits the outcome of the review by Professor Lorne Crerar into regulatory arrangements in Scotland. This will be an important contribution to the government's priorities in this area."

The proliferation of commissioners and ombudsmen attracted growing controversy during the last parliament, culminating in a ferocious debate around the setting up of the post of the Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights.

Already a number of other czars had attracted ridicule - the commissioner in charge of roadworks was famously dubbed "the czar of all the rush-hours" - and the fierce independence of the likes of children's commissioner Kathleen Marshall risked the ire of both ministers and MSPs.

The provisions of the Human Rights Act, passed last year, were heavily watered down to prevent the creation of another powerful czar.

At that time Mr Swinney argued that the parliament had a right to exercise "legitimate financial restraints".

"Nobody is questioning the independence of commissioners, but equally nobody gets a blank cheque to allow them to do what they want, so there must be financial controls in place," he said at the time.

Now Mr Crerar's interim findings will be knocking at an open door, given both the SNP's attitude to commissioners and the party's broader manifesto commitments to slimmed-down government.

Mr Crerar said his inquiry was taking views from all over Scotland with a view to producing a final report in August. But he made clear: "The evidence we have gathered so far has tended to validate the conclusions we made on an interim basis."

He added that advice from the Accounts Commission on the practical application of what the review was seeking to do "shows the direction we were going in was correct and nothing has changed that".

He said bringing new bodies into an increasingly cluttered landscape meant scrutiny was not up to speed with service delivery. "Scrutiny has become a massive industry, and everyone knows there is a need for change," he said.