Proof John Swinney DID plan to reward himself with the same bumper £20,000 pay rise he gave his ministers
John Swinney DID want to reward himself with a £20,000 pay rise – and even requested one from the Scottish Parliament, MailOnline can reveal.
The First Minister quietly lifted a long-standing salary freeze for SNP ministers in April, which allowed him to give them all a bumper salary bonus.
He was also set to pocket a huge salary hike until he performed a dramatic U-turn just hours after MailOnline asked the SNP leader about the pay bonanza.
Now the Scottish Parliament has confirmed that Mr Swinney put in a formal request for a personal £20,000 pay rise with the parliament's pay and pensions team.
It means Mr Swinney was looking to reward himself with a huge salary of £155,000 until MailOnline forced him into an embarrassing climbdown.
Last night former Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross demanded that the First Minister 'come clean with Scots'.
He said: 'This confirms once and for all that the First Minister was more than happy to take a massive pay rise before MailOnline put him on the spot.
'It sums up how disconnected 'Honest John' and the SNP are from the public that it took a reporter's questions to force the First Minister to do the right thing and reject his staggering pay rise.
'However, it remains outrageous that his team of ministers have been rewarded for failure at a time when only this week it was revealed cancer waiting times are the worst on record, sex crimes are rising and housebuilding levels have collapsed.'
Mr Ross asked the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether all ministers, including the First Minister, had received a new pay mandate, to which it responded: 'In April 2025, the First Minister, ministers and law officers received ministerial waiver mandate letters.'
It means Mr Swinney requested the pay change – or 'mandate' – for himself and all ministers, which was confirmed in those letters.
By doing so, he was effectively scrapping a rule introduced by former First Minister Alex Salmond in place since 2009, which stipulated that ministers must deduct the difference between their 'net' salary entitlement – made up of MSP pay and their ministerial pay – and their 2009 entitlement, with the surplus donated to the public purse.
Mr Swinney decreed that while the ministerial element of their salaries will stay frozen, the MSP allowance will now be 'equalised' with other serving MSPs.
While a junior minister was projected to earn £81,449 this year, that figure has now soared to £100,575.
Cabinet secretaries were meant to earn £96,999, but that has jumped to £116,125.
The First Minister's own salary was set to rise to £154,731.
When MailOnline approached the Scottish Government for comment ahead of revealing the news in late April, Mr Swinney's spin doctor called our reporter just hours before publication and said the First Minister would not be taking the pay bump personally.
Our reporter asked when that decision was taken, to which the adviser said he thought Mr Swinney had been thinking about not taking the rise for a 'few weeks'.
These latest revelations show Mr Swinney had already embarked on the official process to secure one before changing his mind.
When pushed on an exact date, the spin doctor called back to say Mr Swinney had actually made a decision not to take it that morning after MailOnline approached the government for comment.
He claimed we had 'crystallised' the First Minister's decision to U-turn on the pay bump.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said last night: 'As has been made clear, the First Minister made the decision to forgo the equalisation of the MSP element of his salary on April 12, in order to avoid any perception that he benefits from his own decisions.'
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