LABOUR is bracing itself for criticism after appointing a senior Scottish Office civil servant to play a key role in its fight to regain the political initiative north of the Border.

The new appointee has swopped his post implementing Government policy in Scotland for a new job in the front line of Scotland's increasingly intense party political battle.

He has recently been working on the Comprehensive Spending Review assessing all Government spending to see where savings can be made. Critics will claim that Labour could benefit from appointing someone who, while a politically-neutral civil servant, gained confidential inside knowledge.

He starts work at Keir Hardie House in Glasgow, Labour's Scottish headquarters, next Monday.

The ex-mandarin, as yet unnamed, will become Scottish Labour's economics adviser. Part of his brief will be to scrutinise SNP policies and spending pledges seeking evidence of what Labour calls the Nationalists' ''Alex-in-Wonderland'' economics.

He will probably earn more than Labour's newly-appointed Scottish General Secretary Alex Rowley, who will announce the new recruit today.

Labour's new Scottish campaign committee, which includes Chancellor Gordon Brown and Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar, sees an economics expert as vital to help draw up the party's manifesto for the first Holyrood elections next May.

Labour in London is paying for a series of new staff in Scotland, including spin doctor Paul McKinney, so the Scottish party can modernise its organisation and campaign effectively to elect MSPs. ''There's a political need in Scotland, so London's coughing up,'' said one source.