The executive has rewritten its economic development strategy

Jack McConnell said Scottish Executive departments would have to seek minimum cost savings of 2% a year to get "maximum value for taxpayers' money".

The savings are part of a drive to improve the efficiency of the public sector in Scotland.

It is one of the new elements included in the executive's revamped Framework for Economic Development (Feds).

Feds was first published in June 2000 but the Scottish Executive launched a review nine months ago.

It is the basis for executive thinking across a range of policy areas.

Launching the rewritten blueprint, Mr McConnell said he wanted Scotland to be the most business-friendly region of the UK and he called for its public sector to be the most productive in the UK.

The UK Government has produced targets that involve savings of 1.25% each year spending across the departments.

Mr McConnell said: "We in Scotland will go further than that.

"In three years' time, we will have targeted a minimum 2% cash saving in government spending in Scotland.

"We will announce decisions, rather than simply targets.

Jack McConnell wants more value for taxpayers' money

"We are determined to get maximum value for taxpayers' money in Scotland."

The 32-page Feds document said that the key challenge was better productivity in both the private and public sector.

The drive to improve productivity will be centred on five elements - basic education and skills, research and development, "entrepreneurial dynamism", electronic and physical infrastructure, and the more efficient use of public resources.

The document rules out using Holyrood's powers to cut personal income tax in Scotland.

Mr McConnell said the document was important as it said "loud and clear" that the executive was serious about delivering economic growth but it has been attacked by opposition parties.

'Vacuous wish list'

The Scottish National Party's economy spokeman, Jim Mather MSP, said the executive continued to behave as though it had learned nothing from years of low growth and population decline.

"We need to compete and at the moment all the data is telling us that the executive policies are actually undermining the competitiveness of Scotland," he added.

Scottish Tory enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser said: "This is a very missed opportunity for the Scottish economy.

"The new Feds reads as little more than a vacuous wish list, long on management-speak but short on real action."

The Greens said executive "rhetoric" on sustainable management did not match the action needed on climate change, transport and energy use.

Green MSP Mark Ballard said: "It's a case of more of everything - more climate-wrecking roads and air travel, more pollution, and more climate change.

"It is also bizarre that the Executive heralds its focus on growing the economy, yet also pursues policies which will drag down the economy in the long term."