The Scottish state is now SO bloated we've got more tsars than Russia!

At this rate, Scotland is soon going to end up with more tsars than Russia.

It was reported yesterday that, over the next two years, the Scottish Government may create seven new ‘commissioners’ – nicknamed ‘tsars’ – to add to the seven that already exist.

On our behalf, these unelected high priests of Scottish public life already run the rule over issues such as the welfare of children and young people and the maintenance of human rights.

They advise MSPs on the standards which the public apparently expect to be met.

It now turns out that the Scottish Government is examining plans to create more of them, to cover – deep breath – victims, patient safety, old people, wellbeing, sustainable development, learning disability, and autism and neurodiversity.

Information Commissioner David Hamilton has been ‘commendably outspoken’ in demanding greater transparency in public life

More. That’s the mantra of Scotland’s governing classes.

Always more. There are so many worthy and important issues in public life, you see.

So many pressure groups and lobbying organisations with good reasons for their causes to be heard.

And so much virtue to be signalled by showing you care about them.

Moreover, look, you can’t have a commissioner for children and young people and not have one for old people, too. That wouldn’t be fair.

Thus, despite the fact the SNP Government is running out of money and will need to raise taxes and slash council spending again this year to keep the ship of state afloat, the great Holyrood boondoggle grows bigger and bigger.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am sure the commissioners we already employ do a worthwhile job (for example, the Information Commissioner David Hamilton has been commendably outspoken in demanding greater openness in public life).

The question here, however, is whether adding yet more public bodies to a lengthening list of quangos, agencies and government departments is necessary.

Few people in Scottish public life ever ask whether bigger government really is better. It often isn’t. I think it’s time this great Scottish juggernaut was halted.

The Scottish state is now so top-heavy it is tripping over itself, and the potential proliferation of commissioners is a good case in point.

In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry being held into the matter, Gina Wilson, head of strategy at the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, painted a Kafkaesque vision of all these numerous bodies fighting over turf.

Keep adding to the number of tsars, she warned, and they will find themselves ‘intervening on similar or identical matters’.

With more on the way, she added, ‘there is a further risk of scope creep and competition’ and ‘deliberate or unintentional power grabs’.

Another commissioner told MSPs: ‘The more that are set up, the more it muddies the landscape as to what we’re all actually doing.’

It points to a confusing morass of agencies which spend more time squabbling over their limits than serving the public in the country.

And the truth is that the tsar creation scheme is just part of the wider story.

Take another great work-producing exercise that’s become the hallmark of the Scottish state: the consultation exercise.

In a report last year published by the think-tank I work for, Our Scottish Future, we discovered in the past decade alone, a staggering 669 consultation papers and 529 strategy documents had been published by the Scottish Government.

No fewer than 113 strategies and plans on health and social care alone had been drummed up in that time.

Meanwhile, civil servants have managed to publish papers such as Challenging Men’s Demand for Prostitution: Policy Principles, and Scotland’s Honey Bee Health Strategy: Implementation Plan. We concluded that the country was suffering from ‘consultitis’.

Again, as with the proposed commissioners, I’m sure these consultations were important to the people who wrote them. And perhaps by a few readers too.

But the problem, we concluded – after speaking to people in the public sector – was that all this paper and all this discussion ends up clogging up the system.

As one council leader told me, his own officials are now overwhelmed by the amount of Holyrood consultations they have to wade through.

Then there’s another government growth area in Scotland: the number of Scottish ministers.

Trimmed back to 18 when Alex Salmond took over as First Minister in 2007, it’s now hitting 30 men and women. All require press releases, action plans, diarised events and civil service support.

All add complexity to an already top-heavy public sector landscape.

It isn’t just a waste of public money, it is an active hind-rance to getting things done. A correction is required. So let me set out three principles ministers in Scotland may wish to follow.

Firstly, it is time for our political masters to adopt a more sceptical attitude towards the very nature of government.

Holyrood is a place where the virtue of government goes unquestioned.

Its catechism declares that if there is a problem in society, then government should be called upon to fix it, because government is good.

Politicians of both Left and Right once understood this was not always the case. It is time Holyrood was reminded of the fact.

Secondly, and following from that, ministers should ask themselves not what is nice but what is necessary.

There really is no money just now for fripperies. Our distressed public services need every penny going. A Commissioner for Wellbeing sounds absolutely lovely: spending the money on a few teachers sounds better.

And finally, let us see ministers adopt a more focused approach to government.

A government of 14 commissioners, 30 ministers and more than 500 consultations is one that prioritises everything and nothing.

Perhaps it is time for Edinburgh to follow the maxim set out by former First Minister Jack McConnell – that it should ‘do less, better’.

Parkinson’s Law famously declares that, in government, no matter how little there is to do, work will expand to meet the time dedicated to doing it.

Over the past few years, the work creation scheme that is Scotland’s public sector has become a perfect case in point.

Government doesn’t need any more commissioners, consultations or ministers to tell us what’s needed in order to pull Scotland out of the mire of mediocrity.

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