THE SCOTTISH Executive has dropped its “target” of attracting 8000 people to Scotland each year under the much vaunted Fresh Talent initiative, writes Steve Bargeton, political editor.

When First Minister Jack McConnell launched the flagship policy in February last year, he made it clear that the target was to increase the population by 8000 a year “between now and 2009.”

At the launch he said, “Our first target must be to avoid our population falling below five million.”

Mr McConnell said, “To do that, we need an additional 8000 people living in Scotland each year between now and 2009.

“We want to meet that target in three ways: by retaining home-grown talent within Scotland; by encouraging Scots who have moved away to come back home; and by attracting some who are completely new to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, from the European Union and from further afield.”

But yesterday MSPs were astonished to learn from the civil servant in charge of the policy that the 8000 figure was only “indicative” and was not a hard target.

“It was only ever an indicative figure of what we might need to attract to keep the population. Now the target date has changed,” Lorna Clark told Holyrood’s European and external relations committee.

“What we really want to do is attract bright, talented, hard-working people. We don’t want to get tied down to an exact number because it is the quality and calibre of people we are trying to attract.

“So we try not to get too hung up on the 8000 because it was just an indicative figure of what we might need at the time, but we will continue to bring in as many people as we can through Fresh Talent.”

That came as news to committee convener John Swinney who said he believed Mr McConnell meant his target was for an additional 8000 people each year.

Ms Clark said, “As far as I know we only used the 8000 figure the once in that statement to parliament. It’s then been used every time anybody else writes about it.

“So I think it’s come to be seen as more of a hard target for the Executive than we ever imagined it would be.”

Later Mr McConnell’s official spokeswoman denied that the target figure had been “dropped because the Executive was not going to hit it.”

She said, “It was never an obligatory target. It is a movable feast. We don’t have an obligatory target.

“It is not really numbers we are talking about here, it is people.”

Last night the SNP said Fresh Talent was a “shambles.”

Enterprise spokesman Jim Mathers said, “This programme is fast becoming a shambles. The Scottish Executive should be aiming to grow the population to keep Scotland competitive, not settling for the low five million mark, at least that would be consistent with their oft stated top priority of growing the economy.

“The Executive are showing a distinct and increasingly common lack of ambition on this policy.”