1. Describe in detail, two powers of the First Minister in the Scottish government

2. Introduction
The First Minister is a role that was created when Scotland voted for a devolved Parliament in There have been 5 First Minsters since 1999.
The current First Minister is Nicola Sturgeon. She took over the role from Alex Salmond in November

3. Hiring and Firing Cabinet Ministers
The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is the head of the devolved government in Scotland. She leads the Cabinet, who are the ministers in charge of the main departments like health and education. As leader of the Cabinet she gets to decide on who gets the main jobs in Cabinet – so it was her decision that John Swinney would be Minister for Education in Scotland.
She would also have the power to sack any cabinet ministers who were not doing their jobs effectively.

4. Setting the Agenda
As leader of the Cabinet she also gets to set the agenda for Cabinet meetings, this means she can decide what is discussed in Cabinet, and the amount of time that each issue is discussed for. This is an important power, because it means that she decides on what the most important issues the government has to deal with are, and she can leave off the agenda anything she does not wish to have discussed.
She can set the priorities for government and manage the discussion of her Ministers. So she can decide that the focus of a meeting should be reducing the health gap between rich and poor in Scotland.

5. Representing the Scottish Government abroad
The First Minister can also represent Scotland abroad. It is up to her to build trading relationships and partnerships with other countries. Alex Salmond spent a lot of time trying to encourage people from the USA, Australia and Canada to buy products from Scotland and to visit Scotland on holiday in the “Year of Homecoming”.