SHAMED former Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has set up a new firm after leaving Holyrood.
The ex-SNP MSP, who quit after it was revealed he had bombarded a 16-year-old with inappropriate text messages, has launched a new consultancy firm.
Lochan Associates has been registered as a new firm with Companies House and Mackay is the sole director, shareholder and “person with significant control”.
It is registered in Paisley, in Mackay’s former constituency of Renfrewshire North and West.
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Because he has now been out of government for two years, Mackay will be allowed to lobby the Scottish Government without the more stringent checks required of former ministers.
Despite disappearing from public life and being suspended by the SNP, he continued to draw his full MSP salary and was handed a £11,945 for “loss of ministerial office”, and a further £53,725 “resettlement grant” when he left Holyrood last year.
He resigned from Cabinet after sending a teenage boy more than 200 texts - behaviour branded "creepy" and "predatory".
Russell Findlay, a Scottish Conservative MSP for West Scotland, told the Herald: “After shamelessly milking every last dime from Scottish taxpayers since his downfall, Derek Mackay's legacy is likely to be a new law being brought forward by the Scottish Conservatives that will allow rogue MSPs to be sacked.
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“Perhaps the supposed one-time First Minister in waiting hopes to exploit his SNP connections to continue gorging on public funds.
“But all public bodies have a responsibility to adhere to the rules and not treat him any differently to others seeking to get a foot in the door.
“It seems that his new venture has been timed so that he is no longer bound by the conditions that apply to recently departed government ministers.”
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