JOHN Swinney has defended a controversial decision by the Scottish Government’s former top official to snub parliament by claiming she was “not an individual”.

The Deputy First Minister was asked about former Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans at Holyrood’s finance and public administration committee.

"The permanent secretary is not an individual, they are an office-holder," he said, as he denied the committee's work had been "compromised" by her refusal to attend it.

Last month, the committee accused Ms Evans of treating parliament with “discourtesy” after she refused to appear before MSPs to discuss her job.

In a scathing letter, the committee said it was “extremely disappointed” at her “failure to engage” and did not “intend to waste any more of our time pursuing this matter”.

At the time, Ms Evans was taking three months’ leave from her £175,000 job before formally stepping on March 31. 

She was a key figure in the Alex Salmond affair, overseeing the disastrous internal probe into sexual misconduct claims against the former First Minister.

Her decisions contributed to Mr Salmond being able to overturn the findings in a judicial review case that saw him awarded £512,000 in costs.

As part of its work into the running of the Scottish Government, the committee approached Ms Evans’s officials last October about her sharing her reflections and insights into her role.

She was repeatedly reassured that the committee did not want to re-run the Salmond affair.

Instead, the focus would be on “how government functions, the capacity and capability of the civil service, culture, and how policies are developed and implemented”.

However her officials wrote to the committee refusing on her behalf, and offered her brand new replacement John-Paul Marks instead, despite him lacking her direct insight.

Ms Evans was “effectively no longer a post-holder within the Scottish Government and is not able to speak on behalf of or represent the views of Scottish Ministers”, officials added.

Discussing the new complaints system set up in the wake of the Salmond affair, Mr Swinney was asked by Tory MSP Liz Smith about Ms Evans’s refusal to attend.

She said: “We were very disappointed that that request was declined. As yet, this parliament hasn’t been able to scrutinise the previous permanent secretary about some of the issues that she felt had caused some difficulties with the administration process. “Secondly, it has raised a concern about the accountability of the permanent secretary, whoever he or she may be, to theScottish Government but also to parliament.

“I raised these points, deputy First Minister, because I think they’re extremely important in the context of public scrutiny here.

“We wanted specific questions answered… from the person who was right in the front line.

“Would you accept that is a problem for this committee?”

Mr Swinney replied: “The point I would make, the fundamental point…is the permanent secretary is an office-holder. I want to make a sort of an obtuse remark or anything that sounds disrespectful, but the permanent secretary is not an individual, they are an office-holder. So any of the questions that Liz Smith or the committee is interested in can be put to the [current] permanent secretary, and I understand the permanent secretary is coming to the committee very shortly.

“The permanent secretary is the leading civil servant in the Scottish Government and therefore as that office holder, the permanent secretary must be available to come to committee to answer for the issues that are relevant to the Scottish Government on an all-time basis. 

“Civil servants do not act in an individual capacity, they act on behalf of ministers, and their authority comes from that relationship.”

Mr Swinney also said the issues around the previous complaints procedure in 2018 had been fully examined by a specific parliamentary inquiry.

However Ms Smith said her committee wanted to ask Ms Evans about other matters.

“Our problem as a committee, given the non-appearance of the previous permanent secretary, who was very much involved at the time there were serious issues, because we have not been able to have that feedback, it’s much more difficult for us to scrutinise what the best way forward should be.”

Mr Swinney denied the committee’s work had been “compromised” by Ms Evans’s snub.