Scotland's former top civil servant: 'Politicians not normal'

THE top mandarin to work for Alex Salmond and Jack McConnell hasdescribed politicians as "not normal" and increasingly remote fromvoters.

Sir John Elvidge, who recently retired as the ScottishGovernment's permanent secretary, its most senior civil servant,delivered the blunt assessment at a talk in Australia last month.

He also said officials were more and more afraid to give honestand unwelcome advice to ministers in case it hurt their careerprospects.

Public servants were not "a heroic band of fearless knightswishing to challenge crude political orthodoxies," he admitted.

Twelve years after the revival of the Scottish Parliament, healso said devolution was still "in nappies" and that he and hisWelsh and Northern Ireland counterparts were initially seen as"renegades" by the Conservative-led Westminster coalition.

The comments came in a Q&A session after Elvidge gave a talkcalled "Public Policy And Leadership In A 2.0 World" at SwinburneUniversity of Technology in Melbourne. A recording was put on theinternet.

Elvidge, 60, said that with the membership of political partiesin the UK "going through the floor", public engagement with politicswas in decline, and politicians were emerging from an ever smallergroup of people, questioning the whole notion of representativedemocracy.

He told his audience: "If the pool of people from whom thoseindividuals are drawn shrinks and shrinks and shrinks then... itmakes them, in a literal sense, not normal, doesn't it?

"We are beginning to see some of the consequences of a disconnectbetween people's sense of whether politicians understand their livesor not - that empathy factor... I would say the UK is experiencing arocky set of developments."

Elvidge joined the civil service in 1973 and was Scotland's topmandarin from 2003 to 2010.

He said civil servants were often scared to give "robust" adviceto their political masters, saying: "The degree of risk thatindividuals in the public service take with their own careers, ifthey seek to follow a traditional approach to full exposure of theiranalysis and consequent advice, has grown considerably."

He also said Westminster was still coming to terms withdevolution, with the Tories particularly unsure about it.

He said: "The UK is in its infancy in working its way throughthis territory.

"In the last UK election, when the Conservatives were looking atthis, they asked why I and my counterparts in Wales and NorthernIreland were allowed into the weekly meeting of all permanentsecretaries, which is the co-ordinating mechanism in the UKgovernment for decades - 'How could you let this bunch of renegadesinto the room?'"

It emerged yesterday that Elvidge was paid pound(s)70,000 inbonuses on top of an annual salary of more than pound(s)150,000between 2004 and 2008.

Hugh Henry, former chairman of Holyrood's public audit committee,and a frequent critic of Elvidge, said he should "get real and get alife".

Henry said: "I'm sure a lot of ordinary folk would think thatabout politicians, but it's rich coming from someone who worked in aculture completely remote from the lives of ordinary people, and whoretired on a pension most people can only dream about."