PLANS to distribute “an independence dividend” of up to 35,000 new civil service jobs around Scotland in a bid to boost towns and cities away from the central belt are being put to the SNP conference for debate.

A resolution has been submitted to the party committee responsible for drawing up the agenda for the event to be held virtually in September.

The proposals would see each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities get a share of the lucrative civil service jobs with extra weighting given to areas with greater economic challenges such as Inverclyde.

The motion also argues for the offices of the Permanent Secretaries and ministers’ to be located at a headquarters not in the capital.

No specific locations have been given for the locations for the new government departments in the proposal, but one of its authors Dr Tim Rideout has suggested the new state’s Ministry of Defence could be located in Argyll, the Ministry of Education in Perth, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in either Falkirk or Stirling, the Department of Fisheries in Lerwick and the Ministry of Energy and accompanying Scottish National Renewables Company (the equivalent of what the Norwegian Statoil was in the oil age) in Aberdeen.

Rideout has also suggested the Ministry of Business, Trade & Enterprise could go to Glasgow, subsume Scottish Enterprise, already based in the city, the Ministry of Pensions and Social Security to Dundee (to build on the existing Social Security Scotland) and the Ministry of Agriculture to Dumfries.

Under the proposals no more government jobs would head to Edinburgh, where already more than 5200 civil service posts are located, in a bid to stop the pressure on the city’s infrastructure and housing demands and ramp economic activity outside the capital.

The resolution has been submitted to the party conference by the SNP’s Dalkeith and District SNP Branch after it was developed by the transition to independence working group of the SNP policy development committee.

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Rideout, who chairs the working group, told The National: “We want to show people what the offer of independence can mean to them and their area. How does it affect my town, what are the implications for jobs for my children?

“We don’t want an independent Scotland to replicate the centralisation of the UK. One of the reasons why the UK economy has performed so badly compared to other countries is because of excessive centralisation.”

Rideout added among the reasons the German economy had performed well was that no one city was dominant.

He said the proposals on civil service jobs being distributed around the new independent nation would also help reduce geographical and overall inequality in Scotland.

“They would mean that there would be good, well paid jobs in the civil service and associated activities distributed across the country. For instance if the Ministry of Agriculture went to Dumfries that would be around 2000 new civil service jobs there – a substantial number. It’s not just those jobs but there would also be a substantial number of jobs in IT and catering and so on which would help build the local economy,” he said underlining that the move would also alleviate increased pressure on the capital that would come from tens of thousands of more residents.

The resolution reads: “Conference notes that the 2021 Scottish Government core civil service is about seven thousand five hundred in number. The UK civil service in Scotland has an additional twenty-five thousand staff, though some of those service UK wide tasks (e.g. Overseas Development in East Kilbride).

“Conference notes similar sized EU countries such as Denmark have in a range of forty to fifty thousand core civil servants. The implication is the Scottish Government will require a major staff expansion, some of which may come from taking over staff currently employed by the UK Government. The Scottish Government is likely to require around thirty-five thousand new posts, of which at least ten thousand cannot be filled by existing UK employees.

“To ensure all areas of Scotland get a fair share of the benefits of independence then conference proposes that an SNP Scottish Government should ensure that all core civil service jobs are distributed across the 32 council areas in proportion to the populations of those areas. This should include head office functions of Ministries such as the location of the Permanent Secretary and Minister.”

It adds: ”Furthermore, conference recognises that many areas are either rural, remote or disadvantaged and currently have very few civil service jobs in their area. To compensate and assist these areas then conference proposes that these areas (for example Dumfries & Galloway, Inverclyde, Highlands, Scottish Borders, An Na h-Eileanan nan Siar) be given an extra weighting of 20% of their current population when calculating their allocations.”

It adds: "This policy will help prevent a repetition of the excessive centralisation on the capital that has characterised the UK, and will ensure that the new jobs and incomes deriving from independence are fairly spread across the entirety of Scotland."

The resolution will be considered for inclusion in the programme for SNP's conference which will take place online in mid September.