Last days of the tsars as MSPs plan to merge watchdogs

PROPOSALS to trim the number of watchdog "tsars" were unveiled by MSPs yesterday.

Ten bodies under the wing of the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Government should be merged into seven, the MSPs recommended.

But they added that the post of the children's commissioner – which had been proposed to merge with the Scottish Human Rights Commission – should remain a stand-alone body.

The changes would see the watchdog responsible for policing MSPs' behaviour, the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, become part of a new and bigger body.

It would merge with the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland, and the Scottish Government's chief investi-gating officer, into a new standards body, the Public Life and Appointments Commission.

The proposals came in a report by a committee of MSPs set up to review the swath of commissions and bodies created by Holyrood since 2000.

Parliamentarians had originally proposed a more drastic round of mergers.