The £2 million cost of the political appointees is up by almost a quarter on the year before. The Tories said Scots would be "furious" that the "SNP are shelling out record sums of taxpayers’ money on an army of spin doctors". Read more Just £1m of £10m Scottish emergency heating oil fund paid out to households SNP MSP breaks ranks and calls for Jackdaw and Rosebank oil fields approval SNP plans for data centre moratorium slammed as 'Scotland risks losing billions' Details of the spend on the influential aides were revealed in a written answer from Business Minister Jamie Hepburn to a parliamentary question from SNP MSP George Adam, lodged on July 6. It revealed that in the last financial year a record £2,160,036 was spent on the salaries of the special advisers, known colloquially as Spad