John Swinney is to strengthen the code under which ministers are investigated in the wake of the probes into Michael Matheson and Nicola Sturgeon.
The First Minister made the announcement at the end of his statement unveiling his programme of work for the year ahead.
Opinion polls have suggested that voters have a concern over standards of behaviour in public life with the row over former health secretary Michael Matheson's iPad bill cited by some SNP figures as a reason why some supporters withdrew their backing of the party at the general election in July.
"My ministers and I are in public service. I want my government to set the highest standard of propriety and integrity," he told MSPs.
- Swinney to 'drop' Sturgeon's Holyrood conversion therapy ban
- Government orders review into scandal hit Creative Scotland
- John Swinney 'optimistic' despite £500m spending cuts
"I want trust to be at the heart of our relationship with the people of Scotland. That is why I intend to make changes to strengthen the Scottish Ministerial Code.
"Investigations into alleged breaches of the Code will no longer happen only at the instruction of the First Minster."
He added: "Independent Advisers will be able to launch their own investigations whenever they feel it is warranted. And where there has been a breach, they will be able to advise me on appropriate sanctions.
"These changes will significantly strengthen the role of the independent advisers, whose terms of reference will also be published.
"I expect to publish the new code by the end of this year."
Former First Minister Ms Sturgeon referred herself to the advisor on the ministerial code, Irish lawyer James Hamilton, in connection with claims she had misled the Scottish Parliament over what she knew about the Scottish Government investigation into Alex Salmond.
She was cleared of breaching the ministerial code in 2021.
Mr Hamilton's report said Ms Sturgeon had given an "incomplete narrative of events" to MSPs.
But he said this was a "genuine failure of recollection" and not deliberate.
Mr Hamilton said he was therefore of the opinion that Ms Sturgeon had not breached any of the provisions of the code.
The Scottish Parliament voted at the end of May to suspend Mr Matheson for 27 sitting days. The SNP did not back the sanction.
The former health secretary also had his salary withdrawn for 54 days for breaching the MSP code of conduct and expenses rules. Mr Matheson will not be able to return to Holyrood until late September.
Mr Matheson took the parliamentary iPad with him on a week-long visit to Morocco with his family around Christmas in 2022.
His roaming charges for the iPad - not phone calls - totalled nearly £11,000 and were initially paid for by taxpayers after Mr Matheson claimed he racked up the eye-watering invoice undertaking constituency work during the trip.
It was found that Mr Matheson had failed to replace an outdated SIM card, which led to the hefty bill. Officials at Holyrood challenged the invoice over the scale of the data fees and the late warning over the rising cost, but previous provider EE declined to waive it.
Mr Matheson agreed to pay £3,000 towards the cost from his expenses budget. As the data use was reportedly for parliamentary business, the Scottish parliament agreed to pay the rest.
Following a public outcry, Mr Matheson agreed to pay the money back to the Scottish parliament.
However, questions remained over the data use - with the figures appearing higher on days football games were taking place.It then later emerged his teenage sons had used the iPad as a hotspot to watch football while on the family vacation.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said that the proposal to toughen up the ministerial code was “an admission by John Swinney that he shamefully mishandled the Michael Matheson scandal”.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel