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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article