By Steve Bargeton, political editor

THE SHAPE of the new Scottish government will become clear this week when SNP leader Alex Salmond makes his bid for the First Minister post.

That will take place on Wednesday, almost two weeks after a cliffhanger Holyrood election which left the nationalists the biggest party by a single MSP.

Today in a special sitting of parliament, newly-elected MSPs will vote in secret ballot for a new Presiding Officer to replace George Reid. That is almost certain to be Tory MSP Alex Fergusson.

With the SNP unable to form a coalition with any of the major parties Mr Salmond is set to lead a minority administration which could be defeated at any time.

As a minority Scottish Executive the SNP would have to modify their manifesto pledges.

Key commitments, like scrapping council tax and introducing a local income tax, may still be possible by striking a deal with the Liberal Democrats.

But other pledges like holding a referendum on independence and cancelling student debt may be impossible to deliver.

However, much of what the nationalists would want to achieve in government can be done without legislation.

The first test for Mr Salmond will be the announcement of his new ministerial team.

At the weekend SNP finance spokesman John Swinney confirmed he had held extensive talks with civil servants over the shape of the new ministerial team.

The SNP plan is for six ministers, compared with 11 in the last Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition.

These would be the First Minister plus ministers for finance and sustainable growth, health and well-being, education and skills, justice and lastly rural affairs and the environment.

There would also be 10 deputy ministers, bringing the total number of junior and senior ministerial positions to 16.

Changes to ministerial positions could be followed by changes to government agencies, with Mr Swinney saying his party planned to make the abolition of housing agency Communities Scotland an “early priority”.

The SNP also plans to bring together the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Scottish Natural Heritage.

North Tayside MSP Mr Swinney said it was still the plan to bring forward a Bill for a referendum.

“There is certainly a lot of things in our manifesto commitments that do not require legislation.

“What we intend to do is to take every step to fulfil our manifesto commitments, and our manifesto commitment was to bring forward a White Paper on a referendum, which would include a Bill for such a referendum to take place.”

“We will take those steps, we will publish that White Paper, we will publish that Bill and at the appropriate time we will put that to the Parliament.

“If other parties decide that they are impressed by the performance of the SNP administration and want to be part of its success, we can talk about it.”

On other matters an SNP Executive would work with other parties on an issue-by-issue basis.

“Some of the things that we would aim to put forward, they will require a parliamentary majority to do that, and we have to work to create that parliamentary majority,” said Mr Swinney.

“We’re going to have to take individual policy issues and identify who will work with us.

“There has to be a new style in Parliament —there’s no way round it. The idea that somehow you can snap your fingers and 65 votes will come rushing along is just not what we’re going to have in the next four years.”