By Andrew Argo

DUNDEE SHOULD continue to bid for civil service jobs, Scotland’s deputy first minister Jim Wallace said yesterday, but it has to understand that it is playing in a competitive game against strong opponents.

On the eve of a visit to the city, Mr Wallace said he was aware of feelings within Dundee that the city had not had a fair crack of the whip with the distribution of civil service posts.

Local politicians and business leaders have lamented that apparent promises have not been realised, and claimed that while some civil service posts have arrived in the city, a larger number have left for elsewhere.

A disillusioned Dundee and Tayside Chamber of Commerce chief executive Mervyn Rolfe said a month ago, “The whole system plays to the advantage of Edinburgh and Glasgow. It’s not just a whinge—it’s a proverbial fact.”

Mr Wallace, who is also enterprise minister, did not accept that Dundee was a loser in the share-out of civil service jobs.

Two important agencies, the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and the Scottish Social Services Council have located in Dundee, he stated, and legislation has been passed to bring the new office of the Scottish Charities Regulator to the city.

Furthermore, the regional office of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education in Dundee is to be expanded with more staff employed, and the Westminster government has chosen the city for an office of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Other agencies like Scottish Enterprise and VisitScotland have undergone centralisation but their regional hubs have been retained, and Mr Wallace insisted these agencies still have local focuses.

The minister continued, “There remains a presumption, whenever there is a break in the lease of a civil servants’ office in Edinburgh, against staying in Edinburgh.

“Other local authorities are asked to put forward a case for taking these offices to their areas, and I know Dundee City Council regularly puts forward its case.

“The fact that the offices I have mentioned have moved to or are set to move to Dundee indicates that we have been prepared to locate to other parts of the country, and we are prepared to take these decisions even when they are painful, as we have seen with Scottish Natural Heritage moving from Edinburgh to Inverness.

“There are other parts of the country that are bidding quite keenly as well as Dundee for civil service jobs, and there are some parts of the country that have claimed they have received nothing.

“There will be more jobs coming along, and I would encourage Dundee City Council to continue to come forward, when the opportunity arises, with a business case to locate in Dundee.

“The experience so far proves that the city has been successful. Dundee must continue to compete, but it is a competitive market.”

The enterprise minister is also aware of strong feelings in Dundee’s industrial community about development constraints caused by the local authority’s tight boundaries. A shortage of greenfield sites on the outskirts of the city has not helped efforts to attract new and growing businesses to the city.

He reiterated the statements of first minister Jack McConnell and local government minister Tom McCabe last month that a review of Dundee’s boundary with Angus and Perth and Kinross was not on the agenda before 2007.

He continued, “If there is a boundary issue, you do not have to change the boundary to look at an issue that is causing problems. The first minister said that if problems can be resolved through local discussion, then that is something we would encourage.”

Mr Wallace said the executive supported efforts to help Dundee’s economy. The £9.3 million for the regeneration of the waterfront was only the latest example of that support.

Mr Wallace will be in Dundee today to visit the NCR plant following his trip to the company’s global headquarters in Ohio, in the US, last year.

He will also take part in the opening of the new premises of Upstate biotechnology company in the technology park, and of the hospitality training suite at Dundee College.