Nicola Sturgeon is to meet the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator on Thursday as experts warned her government needs to recruit a large number of “capable” civil servants or risk botching its preparations for leaving Europe.

Michel Barnier announced he would meet the Scottish First Minister as well as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones to “listen to different points of view”. However, he emphasised he would only negotiate with the UK Government.

The meeting was publicised as the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) published four advice papers on Brexit, one of which warned that the Scottish Government has too few skilled civil servants to manage leaving the EU on top of its additional responsibilities.

Officials will have to help draw up and deliver new frameworks to replace EU-wide systems such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), as well as dealing with the huge ramifications for Scots law of the Repeal Bill.

The RSE warned there was a “substantial risk” that the relatively small numbers of staff responsible for leading the work “will be strained to the point that the quality and sustainability of new frameworks to replace EU frameworks is compromised.”