Scottish National party ministers have been the focus of a “quite remarkable” number of misconduct and bullying complaints compared with those in other parts of the UK, a civil service union leader has told an inquiry. Dave Penman, general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents the country’s most senior civil servants, said he had dealt with “a handful” of complaints about ministers in other UK departments over the past decade. In Scotland, around 30 senior officials had raised complaints or flagged concerns about bullying and misconduct involving ministers in five offices since 2010, Penman told the Scottish parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday. Penman did not name the ministers. Penman said he was aware of “probably a handful of instances” for the UK civil service in that period, which was why the Scottish government figure “felt quite remarkable” in terms of numbers. “It did feel like there was an unusual number in the Scottish government compared to the rest of the UK civil service.” The committee is investigating the Scottish government’s mishandling of an internal inquiry into alleged sexual harassment claims made against former SNP first minister Alex Salmond in early 2018. The complaints were upheld by an internal inquiry but its findings were quashed by the court of session in January 2019 after Salmond launched legal action against his former government. The permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, said the process was unlawful and had the appearance of bias because the inquiry was overseen by a senior official who had had prior contact with the two complainers about their complaints. Salmond denied all the allegations, and in March 2020 was acquitted of all 14 charges of alleged sexual assault, including one of attempted rape, following a two-week jury trial at the high court in Edinburgh. He has accused senior figures within the SNP and Sturgeon’s inner circle of pursuing a vendetta against him, by fabricating or pursuing ill-founded claims. Penman and Malcolm Clark, convenor of the Scottish government’s trade unions committee, told the hearing on Tuesday that unions had been agitating for ministers to be included in its anti-bullying policies since 2008. Two years later Salmond agreed to include ministers in a new “fairness at work” procedure. In November 2017, following an “explosion” of concerns raised by the #MeToo movement, Sturgeon agreed to include ministers and former ministers in a sexual harassment policy that was quickly used to investigate Salmond. Penman told the committee these policies were “unique” among UK government departments. He said Scotland’s policies were the most far-reaching, and superior to the politically controlled ministerial code process used in Whitehall. Even so, there was still high levels of mistrust amongst civil servants about the independence of the Scottish process, he said. The entire UK civil service and all ministers should instead be covered by a fully independent, transparent complaints process, Penman suggested, otherwise ministers were “marking their own homework”. “I don’t think we would be here if we’d had a fully independent process. I think it would’ve been less subject to challenge or accusations around malevolent intent or motivation; we would’ve taken all of those things, all the politics, out of it.” He told the inquiry the “quite extraordinary” number of complaints suggested there was a specific problem within the Scottish government, which began during the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government and was continuing today within Nicola Sturgeon’s administration. “The numbers of people raising concerns about the Scottish government are so significantly greater than we are aware of elsewhere that it suggests that something particular – over the longer term – has happened in the Scottish governments,” Penman said.