The Scottish Government is considering cutting the pay of high-earning public-sector workers by 5%.
The move would affect people on the highest income, including those working for the health service, councils, universities and government agencies.
Research indicates that about £600million is spent across government paying a small number of top officials salaries that are greater than those paid to government ministers.
It is understood that a 5% cut from the biggest earners would free up about £30million in public money, which could be redistributed to lower-paid staff.
SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney accepted last night that the highest paid must shoulder the biggest burden.
He said: “What the government has of course done already is that we’ve frozen our own pay as ministers. We’ve set an example. We’ve made clear that for senior civil servants there will be a pay freeze into the bargain.
“We’ve made it clear that we intend to extend that pay freeze amongst high earners within the public sector and we will continue to look at other ways of developing what’s going to be a very significant pressure on the pay bill within the public sector over the years to come.
“It is the highest paid who must shoulder the biggest burden.”
The 5% pay cut for high earners is a key demand of the Liberal Democrats in the negotiations that will determine if the minority SNP government can get its budget through Holyrood next year.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott said: “We’re asking the government to look at the overall public-sector pay bill in Scotland and take out 5% across that pay bill at the very top – in other words, on people earning more than £100,000 – so that we can protect people at the bottom and also help with the overall pressure the finances of the public sector are under.”
He said 1,200 people in the NHS earned over £100,000. The bill was £300million, £50million of it as bonuses.
“We want to make sure some of that money is used to help people at the bottom – the cleaners, nurses, the auxiliary staff – as well as helping with the overall state of the public finances,” he said.
About 150 employees in NHS Highland alone fall into the £100,000 pay bracket, while in higher education Dundee University has about 50 staff in that category.
When asked whether the pay cut was a bottom-line issue for the Lib Dems, Mr Scott said: “We certainly hope that they will accept this particular argument, yes.”
Scottish Labour finance spokesman Andy Kerr raised doubts about the Lib Dem proposal, however.
He said: “We certainly also called for a pay freeze on the highest earners, but I’m not sure that’s the top of my list of priorities in relation to how we actually stimulate economic growth and get Scotland back to work.”