SCOTLAND’S minister for independence is facing questions over his £32,000 salary boost after it emerged he has no budget and only one regular member of staff.

Jamie Hepburn was given the roving brief by Humza Yousaf in March in line with a pledge the First Minister made during the SNP leadership contest.

But now there are concerns over whether Mr Hepburn’s workload justifies his pay, with opposition parties claiming money is being wasted on a "made-up job".

As well as his basic MSP's wage of £67,662 in 2023/24, Mr Hepburn is paid an additional £31,854 as a minister.

The top-up, a sum laid down by the Scottish Parliament Salaries Scheme, is more than the median salary for a full-time job in Scotland, which was £27,700 in 2022.

However a recent response to a freedom of information (FoI) request revealed there was “no specific budget allocated to the minister for independence”.

In addition “only one member of staff is currently employed in the Minister’s private office”.

The FoI also reveals Mr Hepburn had just one ministerial meeting outside the government in his first month in office, receiving a briefing on attitudes to the UK's democratic system from a political scientist based at University College London.

Mr Yousaf last weekend said the SNP would claim a mandate for independence it if it won a majority of seats in the general election, but with Labour and the Tories opposed, there appears little realistic prospect of Indyref2 in the coming year

Mr Hepburn, the MSP for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, was minister for higher and further education before he was given his new overtly political role as a backroom 'fixer' reporting directly to Mr Yousaf.

Two weeks after giving his ally the job, Mr Yousaf gave Mr Hepburn’s wife a job too.

The SNP leader created a post for Julie Hepburn as the party’s “head of strategic delivery”.

This was despite Mr Yousaf admitting it was not “the best standard” for the SNP to have had a married couple in senior positions when Nicola Sturgeon was leader and her husband Peter Murrell was chief executive. 

Scottish Tory MSP Donald Cameron said: “This underlines how wrong it is that Humza Yousaf is frittering away public money on a minister for independence.

“The reality is that Jamie Hepburn is effectively the minister for SNP cheerleading – and getting paid handsomely for it. This is a stark reminder that the SNP’s independence obsession will always be their top priority.

“Rather than squandering public funds on a ministerial salary to stir up constitutional division, the SNP should be focusing on the public’s real priorities, like the cost-of-living crisis, fixing our NHS and strengthening our economy.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Willie Rennie said: "This is a waste of civil service time and a ministerial salary.

"If only the SNP were as good at creating high wage jobs across Scotland as they are at creating them for their own parliamentarians.

“It looks like Jamie Hepburn is doing a made-up job designed to convince nationalist activists that progress is being made, even though every reasonable person can see that there is no immediate prospect of the SNP breaking up the UK.

"The Scottish Government should be putting every penny to work tackling the cost-of-living crisis. I am thoroughly fed up of being governed by a nationalist party more concerned with stunts and grievance than actually running the country well."

The Scottish Government said Mr Hepburn’s responsibilities included “independence strategy, parliamentary co-ordination and liaison regarding devolution, independence and Scotland's constitutional future, communication with people, businesses and organisations regarding devolution, independence and Scotland's constitutional future”.

A spokesperson said: “The First Minister appointed a Ministerial team that reflects the priorities he will pursue in government – including giving people the information about devolution and independence that they need to make an informed choice about Scotland's constitutional future.

“The Minister for Independence’s responsibilities include parliamentary co-ordination, and engagement with people, businesses and other organisations across Scotland on these matters. 

“While it is the role of the Civil Service to support the elected government of the day in developing and implementing its policies, the vast majority of civil servants are not allocated to work directly for individual Ministers.

“As Ministers have outlined to the Scottish Parliament, there is a democratic mandate for an independence referendum. 

“The Scottish Government remains ready to engage with the UK Government to give people in Scotland the right to choose their constitutional future in line with the result of the 2021 Scottish Parliament election which returned a clear majority in favour of a referendum.”