Image caption Danny Alexander believes the UK government needed to behave like a government of Scotland

The chief secretary to the treasury has told the BBC that the UK government is not "active enough" in Scotland.

Danny Alexander said the coalition needed to "step up" its engagement and make a "positive argument" for Scotland to stay inside the UK.

The Liberal Democrat said that the UK government needed to behave like a government of Scotland.

He said it should listen more to Scottish concerns and better explain UK-wide issues.

But Mr Alexander also believed the coalition should be more willing to challenge the Scottish government on some of its decisions.

The Inverness MP said successive UK governments had been "passive recipients of complaint" from the SNP administration instead of active participants in the debate about how Scotland was run now and in the future.

He said: "I think we need to do a great deal more.

"It's something that we have been discussing within government over the past few months - how do we step up the way in which the UK government engages with Scotland?

"I think it's kind of accepted across the political spectrum that since devolution, when Labour was in power at Westminster and subsequently, the UK government has not engaged enough with Scotland."

Five-year term

Mr Alexander added: "Scotland has two governments, and we have to behave like a government of Scotland and get out there and argue and explain what we're doing.

"That's what Michael Moore [the Scottish Secretary] and I have started to do over the past few weeks, and you will start to see other ministers coming and making those cases in Scotland, to Scottish people, listening to Scottish arguments and to Scottish responses to those things."

The minister said senior ministers would spend more time in Scotland in the years before an independence referendum and were preparing to counter the nationalist case with "vigour".

The SNP government has promised to hold a referendum on independence towards the latter part of its five-year term.

SNP MSP John Finnie said he would welcome greater engagement by the UK government in Scotland.

He added: "For decades we've seen government after government in London who are more content with talking Scotland down than working for the benefit of the people.

"The refusal to work constructively with the Scottish government is nothing but political grandstanding at its worst.

"If this move by Danny Alexander is a signal that the UK government is finally ready to grow up and engage with Scotland seriously on issues that matter then it's of course to be welcomed."