SARAH BOYACK MSP MARGARET CURRAN MP CATRIONA …€¦ · Daniel Johnson is Convener of the Scottish Fabians, co-owns an established Edinburgh business and is a community campaigner

SARAH BOYACK MSPMARGARET CURRAN MPTREVOR DAVIESKEZIA DUGDALE MSPCAROL FINLAYMIKE FREUNDENBERGDUNCAN HOTHERSALLDANIEL JOHNSON

FOREWORD BYJOHANN LAMONT MSP

RICHARD KERLEYCATRIONA MUNROMAUREEN PARNELLANAS SARWAR MPDREW SMITH MSPFRANCIS STUARTKATHERINE TREBECKDIARMID WEIR

AFTERWORD BYIAIN GRAY MSP

Scottish Fabians is part of The Fabian Society, Britain’s oldest politicalthink tank. Since 1884 the Society has played a central role indeveloping political ideas and public policy on the left. Through a widerange of publications and events the society influences political andpublic thinking, but also provides a space for broad and open-mindeddebate.

The Society is alone among think tanks in being a democratically-constituted membership organisation, with almost 7,000 members. Itwas one of the original founders of the Labour Party and isconstitutionally affiliated to the party. It is however editorially,organisationally and financially independent and works with a widerange of partners of all political persuasions and none.

In 2012 Scottish Fabians relaunched with a programme of members-led discussions, events and publications focusing on an exploration ofvision, values and policy. It held its inaugural AGM in November 2012which elected its first Executive Committee to take forward an excitingprogramme of work.

Join Scottish Fabians today

Every member of the Fabian Society resident in Scotland isautomatically a member of Scottish Fabians. To join the FabianSociety (standard rate �3 per month / unwaged �1.50 per month)please visit www.fabians.org.uk/members/join.

Contributors 5

Foreword 7Johann Lamont MSP

Common Cause 8Trevor Davies, Carol Finlay, Mike Freundenberg, Maureen Parnell, Diarmid Weir

Enterprise as an act of public service 14Kezia Dugdale MSP

From trickle-down growth to collective prosperity 20Katherine Trebeck, Francis Stuart (Oxfam Scotland)

Changing Scotland requires changing Holyrood 27Drew Smith MSP

Delivering social justice through economic change 33Anas Sarwar MP

Devolution as an economic ambition 33Daniel Johnson, Duncan Hothersall

Public services – could we do better? 44Richard Kerley

Double devolution: devo mark two 52Sarah Boyack MSP

Labour, Europe and Scotland 61Catriona Munro

A choice between progress and division 66Margaret Curran MP

Afterword 71Iain Gray MSP

Scottish Fabiansww www.scottishfabians.org.ukt @scottishfabians

Publications & editorial: Duncan Hothersalle [email protected]

This book, like all Fabian Society publications, represents not the collective views of Scottish Fabians or the Fabian Society but only the views of the authors. The responsibility of Scottish Fabians is limited to approving its publications as being worthy of consideration within the Labour movement.

Scottish Fabians Executive Committee 2012/13

Daniel Johnson, ConvenerApril CummingCatriona MunroTom YorkAnn McKechin MPDuncan Hothersall

SSarah Boyack MSP is Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Planning.

Margaret Curran MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and Labour MP for Glasgow East; she was previously MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and a Scottish Minister from 2000 to 2007.

Professor Trevor Davies is a former TV producer and councillor, now professor at Glasgow University, who writes and speaks about bringing values and narrative back to the heart of politics.

Kezia Dugdale MSP is Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.

Carol Finlay is a former chair of the Scottish Executive Committeeof the Labour Party, now Senior Assistant to Alistair Darling MP, having previously worked in human resource management.

Mike Freundenberg is an artist, writer and musician, social entrepreneur and non-governmental sector professional, active within Labour, the Fabians & Unite since the 1970s.

Iain Gray MSP is Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance.

Duncan Hothersall is on the Scottish Fabians Executive, is a small business owner and is a past director of the Equality Network.

Daniel Johnson is Convener of the Scottish Fabians, co-owns an established Edinburgh business and is a community campaigner in the south of the city.

Professor Richard Kerley is an academic and consultant who researches, advises and writes on public service and public policy.

Johann Lamont MSP is Leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

Catriona Munro is a lawyer specialising in EU law, previously in Brussels and in London, and now in Scotland.

Scottish Fabians 5

Ambitions for Scotland

MMaureen Parnell is a social scientist at Napier University, teaching enthusiastic students from every background, all concerned with the pressing need for political change.

Anas Sarwar MP is Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party and co-ordinator of the referendum campaign.

Drew Smith MSP is a former member of the Scottish TUC General Council and Labour MSP for Glasgow since 2011.

Francis Stuart is Research and Policy Adviser for Oxfam Scotland’sdomestic poverty programme and is currently taking forward Oxfam’s work on the Humankind Index and ’Our Economy’.

Katherine Trebeck is Global Research Policy Adviser for Oxfam looking at ways to develop a socially sustainable and just economy.

Diarmid Weir is a former General Practitioner, now economics researcher, teacher and blogger aiming to expose the reality behind the numbers.

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Johann Lamont MSP

The debate about Scotland's future is dominating our politics at themoment as we build towards a referendum on independence. Myfrustration is that that debate is too narrow, too focused on whetherwe want to remain part of the United Kingdom or not.

I believe the debate about Scotland's future could, and should, be somuch richer.

The nationalists have a single idea. They get to put it to the test nextyear. But the radical voices of the left have many ideas. These ideashave changed people's lives for the better, and I am confident they willagain. Those are the ideas I am interested in hearing.

I want Scotland's future to be a battle of these ideas, competingvisions about how we transform an education system that createsopportunity for all; build a sustainable health service which delivers thekind of care we would want for our sick, our vulnerable and ourelderly; deliver a justice system that ensures our streets are safe; andconstruct a new economy that allows all of us to share in futureprosperity.

The Fabian Society has been always been a melting pot for radicalideas and has helped shaped Labour's past. In taking forward thisproject, I am sure Scottish Fabians will be central to delivering theradical change we aspire to for Scotland.

Scottish Fabians 7

Trevor Davies, Carol Finlay, Mike Freundenberg, Maureen Parnell, Diarmid Weir

We are at a fork in the road.

We have been beguiled along this gilded path only now to find, inanger and dismay, that the place at which we stand is where the gapbetween rich and poor is the greatest for a hundred years, whereausterity threatens to rend our social fabric for generations, and wheredivisions between classes, races, regions and nations are beingwidened, accidentally and deliberately.

We have a choice. We can continue, through timidity, or lack ofimagination, or preoccupation with the day-to-day, along the crowdedpath which may still deny to every citizen the chance of a good life oftheir own choosing. Or we can take the adventurous path whichdelves into our core values and, from them, begins to configure adifferent Scotland.

The present is stark. In families everywhere, parents, if they can findwork, are working harder than ever before and yet are falling behindin a struggle to provide a decent life for themselves and their children.Their living standards, flat from 2000 but propped up by give-awaycredit, slumped from 20081 and will do so for the foreseeable future.Those same parents, giving their working lives to a local factory, nowfind the owners are an anonymous off-shore fund doing deals that for‘efficiency‘ require the factory to shut. Without work they fall backunwillingly onto state support. But the state, its revenue destroyed bytax scams, is slashing its support. The determined single parent of twoschoolgirls studying at home for a specialist science degree so she canbetter provide for her growing girls, reading at night, writing essays atthe kitchen table in school hours, paying her own tuition fees and

1 The Resolution Foundation 2013

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COMMON CAUSE

living on the margin, now faces losing her home and the end of herambitions, because the girls have the ‘luxury’ of a bedroom each – andthe government wants therefore to take �40.00 from her supportevery month.

In our low wage, low skill, low productivity, de-unionised economy,the young face a future less prosperous, less certain and moredangerous than their parents. Despite their efforts to keep up, morepeople live in poor health, more children grow up in poverty. Many eatanonymous adulterated food. Nearly a quarter are in permanent debt.And most of us fail to properly acknowledge that we all live beyondwhat the planet can provide. Yet, still, we are nagged by a feeling thatwhat we do buy does little to support its producers, but instead putsyet another pound into the collecting boxes of the corporate rich. In atime of debt and disruption, �6,000 hand bags and �245,000 cars arebest-selling products.

This is not ‘the politics of envy’, as apologists for the old order claim. Ifwe confront those disconnections, it can become instead ‘the politicsof justice’. Because at last the economists, the political theorists, thebusiness ‘experts’, their cheerleaders in our far-from-free press, whohave persuaded us all over forty years of the ‘truth’ of feudal dogmasof trickle-down economics and the unfettered free market, have beenfound out. The ground they believed to be firm is daily shifting undertheir feet, and ours, to a point of crisis.

Yet we fumble for new foundations. At the time of the last GreatDepression prior to war, Antonio Gramsci wrote: The crisis consistsprecisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born;in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.2

The ‘morbid symptoms’ of our day mean we live in a time of pullingapart. The bad economics which make the many pay for the rampagesof the few, the dreamt-of borders and separations of either the UKIPor SNP sort, the blame placed on the young, poor and sick for theiryouth, poverty or sickness, the demonisation of the foreigner, whether

2 Selections from the Prison Notebooks

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refugee or worker – these are divisions of a depth and strength we’venot seen since the aftermath of the Great War.3

It is time for the new to be built.

We already have the foundations laid in our deepest values and senseof right and wrong. Our values con front and resist the fools goldwhich tells us there is no such thing as society, that the workplacemust be ruled by profit alone, that citizens are best treated asconsumers, that anyone unlike us is likely to be dangerous and thateach community should be bounded according to its wealth.

So let us, instead, speak of pulling together, of the relationships wehave with each other and of the values we find in them. The doctor inher surgery who, knowing that passive patients don’t get well as fast,instead of simply giving out another pill, chooses instead to help thepatient acquire the ‘tools’ to own his own health, taking responsibilityfor his own healthy living, while she offers medical expertise whenneeded. The company directors who sustain their worldwide companyover decades of boom and bust by knowing that their employees workbetter when they share in the company, when they are trusted fortheir knowledge and loyalty, when they have power to decidethemselves the best way to do their work. The neighbourhood whichturns out in good numbers and of all ages to clean, repair andmaintain a canal bank as a wider public resource and a thin green beltfor plants and animals.

Those values of solidarity, of responsibility, of common cause are thefoundations on which we have built and must build again. So we lookto a Scotland where our conditions of life are shaped by each of usowning our own work, health, culture and learning; sharing ourcommon well-being, risks and security; and belonging fully to aresponsive democracy.

The idea of ‘ownership’ has been colonised by the right to mean thesimply transactional, like personal vouchers to buy a place in a school,or to frame a justification for vested interests, as in the ‘natural’

3 Danny Dorling Fair Play 2012

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COMMON CAUSE

supremacy of the rights of business owners or land owners over thoseof customers or workers or tenants or the environment.

For us, though, ownership is about responsibility and relationships,about the ability and capacity of individuals, families and groups todetermine their own lives. It is about pursuing and owning our ownlife, liberty and happiness; about resisting those outside forces andvested interests, both economic and political, along with the socialstresses of inequality4 that would deny them to us.

So to call for conditions where each of us may own our own work,health, culture and learning is far-reaching and challenging. Significantchange is needed: corporate governance and work practices to alloweveryone to take responsibility for the way in which they work andcontribute to the creation of wealth; the income and knowledge andconfidence to take charge of our own health and well-being; the skillsand leadership to reinvigorate the places we live and work in; the timeand freedom to create and share a full cultural life, the life of the soul;and the lifelong capacity to learn, develop skills, enjoy learning for itsown sake and what it can bring.

Such change will not come from government doing stuff to others. Itwill come from the state acting as a convener of change, gatheringand nurturing the relationships, and providing the powers, toindividuals and organisations, to do it for themselves.

Individual liberty and well-being do not derive from individualism –certainly not from the dog-eat-dog, beggar-thy-neighbour, free marketindividualism that portrays poverty as a result of laziness and welfareas akin to free-loading. Rather they derive from equality andcommonality. They grow from strengthening our shared well-beingand our shared security and managing our shared risks. By sharing therisks of unforeseen illness we lessen its impact on each and on all. Bysharing the risks to our security, from external threat, from crime, fromunemployment or bereavement, we reduce its cost and increase its

4 The Spirit Level Wilkinson and Pickett 2009

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effectiveness for each of us. By sharing our well-being we ensure it isavailable to all.

But that essential sense of sharing has weakened under the pressuresof individualism and nationalism. Our shared relationships, whether atlocal, Scottish, UK, European or global levels, need re-articulation. Theyalso need strengthening. It will be a far-reaching and challenging task.The relationships of shared well-being, shared risk and shared securityneed gathering and nurturing, re-examining, re-enlivening, reinforcingand re-resourcing if they are to become meaningful again.

We pride ourselves on our democracy. Yet few on its receiving endwould claim it is responsive; much less that they have a tangiblerelationship with it and with each other through it. Most would say itis dominated by vested interests and powerful voices. The urgentquestion for us is how to bring an equality of voice into our institutionsand processes, enabling decisions to be reached through reciprocalunderstandings rather than through the exercise of power or of‘expert’ status.

At the heart of our values we now discover the importance ofrelationships, of governing through the creation and support ofproductive relationships.5 It is time to end the price-based, consumer-not-citizen, dependency model of government and the easy kiss-me-quick retail politics of a benefit here, a tax-break there. Our foundationstone of ‘governance as relationships’ is open-ended, complex,uncertain, hard to summarise in official reports, but more enduringand more egalitarian. More important than what we try to do is howwe – and others – do it, more about process than objective, moreabout means than ends, about embedding our values – of owning,sharing and belonging, of solidarity and common cause – into theprocesses that shape our relationships. For the ends are aboutproviding for every citizen the chance of a good life of their ownchoosing, not of ours.

But notice the word ‘every’. There’s the challenge.

5 see IPPR The Relational State 2013

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COMMON CAUSE

This is not just a task for government, though government is part of itand we admire the experiments under way in Edinburgh towards a‘co-operative council’. More than that, it is a task for common actionsthat step outside or devolve beyond government and yet contribute toour shared well-being. The energy project in Dundee which bringsconsumers together to use the power of their combined purchases tolower their energy bills. The Fife Diet campaign to restore integrity andlocalism to Fife’s food supply.

Devolution for us is not an end in itself. It is certainly not a steppingstone on the path to separate nationhood. Nor is it simply breaking offa bit – or a bit more or a bit less – of Westminster and Whitehall andrelocating to Edinburgh. We see devolution as a process, a means. Ameans of placing power where it properly belongs, whether that isEuropean, UK, Scottish, local or individual; a process which constantlyseeks to take social, economic and political power downwards until itsettles at its most effective level. So we uphold the values ofdevolution, which brought significant parliamentary powers to ournation, and seek to extend those values beyond the Scottishparliament and government, exploring new forms of common actionand government that place responsibilities and powers in the hands ofthe many, not the few.

And, therefore, we seek a Scottish Parliament which reaches up tograsp fully its ambition as a legislature, setting standards andenhancing our rights and freedoms. We also want it to shed its dailyministerial authority over most government services and to dispersethem to local levels where the paths of information and control areshorter and where productive alliances between users and supplierscan govern their provision. We want it to encourage and supportforms of common action outside and beyond government. Untidy,diverse and uncontrolled it will certainly be, and to accept that is hard,but we believe it to be the right and adventurous path.

Scottish Fabians 13

Kezia Dugdale MSP

“Ask me anything. Anything you like at all. Don’t worryabout whether it’s something to do with the Council, or theWestminster Government… Whatever it is I’ll do my best toanswer and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find out for youand get back in touch.”

It was hard work breaking the ice with this group of despondentyoung people at the youth centre in Central Edinburgh. Aged between16 and 21, they all had varied experiences of the education system anddifferent outlooks on life.

One soul ventured: “When will there be jobs?” and somehow spokefor them all.

Since the crash, unemployment has spiralled and much of thediscourse has focused around the monthly rises and dips in theunemployment numbers. When the commentators got bored of that,or struggled to find their own headline in the numbers, they began toexplore the growing phenomenon of underemployment. Latest figuressuggest that 10.6% of the population in Scotland are underemployed– and by that we mean they are either too qualified for the jobs theyare in, or desperately looking for more hours. It’s an issue thatpredominantly affects women and has a dramatic impact on in-workpoverty. It is a problem compounded by welfare cuts and rising livingcosts.

Now the media are rightly obsessed with the notion of “zero hour”contracts. Companies recruit staff on contracts of employment thatdon’t guarantee any actual work. In consequence, people of all ages

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ENTERPRISE AS AN ACT OF PUBLIC SERVICE

disappear from the unemployment statistics without gaining thebenefit of secure paid employment. Newspapers carry stories ofemployees arriving at huge warehouses in the early hours of themorning only to be told they have to wait in the canteen until there’swork to be done – clocking on only when the conveyor belt startsmoving.

In our desperate attempt to make the statistics better we've confusedthis type of exploitation as employment. In fact our governments haveencouraged it.

The story of unemployment, underemployment and poor terms andconditions paints a very clear picture for me of a job market that it isbroken. The response from governments of all hues is to invest more inattracting big multinational companies to set up in areas of highunemployment. Huge public sums subsidise the building ofwarehouses and factories housing poor quality jobs and feed the taxavoiding habits of the multinationals running them.

It doesn’t have to be like this, and Labour politicians have long arguedthe case for a good, responsible capitalism. A number of Scottish MSPsand MPs also make a compelling case for using the power of publicprocurement to drive up employment standards which I fully support –tying public cash to a limited list of the “decent thing to do.” Pay yourtax and a living wage, abandon zero hour contracts and commit tohiring young people and the public cash will be yours.

But must we always barter with the big guys? Or can we imagine adifferent economy, built on home grown businesses that pridethemselves on being decent employers, rooted in the communities thatthey employ as well as buy and sell from.

To drive such a dramatic shift in how our economy develops requires achange of culture, and I would argue that our working culture isperhaps our biggest obstacle as a nation.

Our shared history and identity provides substantial evidence of thepride we take in public service, but our disdain for, and distrust of,those who choose to make their own money.

Scottish Fabians 15


There is something about our culture which tells us that to make anysubstantial money of your own is avarice. That such an aspiration is forthe already well heeled and those of a right wing persuasion.

Perhaps that’s because for too long we’ve witnessed governmentsincentivise business growth with combinations of tax cuts, goldenhandshakes and deregulation. All sit ill at ease with our shared values,but need it be the only way?

Could we aspire to be a more enterprising nation built on our values ofpublic service? A place where wealth is created by the toil of those insecure, well paid work. A place where wealth is shared by those whobuilt it. A place where running a successful business is not somethingyou do for yourself, but for your community?

This has to start with the next generation, people young enough tostrain against the prevailing culture in order to drive its development.What they need is a combination of practical skills and the confidenceto jump.

The statistics show there are reasons to be optimistic about the futureof entrepreneurship within young people. In 2012 the GlobalEntrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for Scotland reported that plans fornew-start businesses are at their highest level in a decade and up 6%on 2010. The reasons attributed to this growth include a jump in start-up activity by graduates. It sounds like good progress until you realisethat just 0.5% of those who graduated in 2011/2012 started outemploying themselves.

So how do we change this?

The Practicalities

As we all know, it begins in education. Our colleges and universitiesare centres of academic excellence. Our identity places a high value oneducation as the great equalizer. A good education always remains apathway out of poverty.

Yet a good education in this global market hasn’t always equalledwork, as the unemployment statistics demonstrate. This leads some to

16 Scottish Fabians


a debate about “work-readiness”. Do our institutions equip our youngpeople with the skills for the workplace? We obsess about the degreeto which industry should design education and all the time we seek toperfect a supply chain for someone else’s business.

Should schools, colleges and universities devote more time to thepracticalities of setting up your own business? What are rates and howdo you pay them? How do you keep yourself on the right side of theHMRC? How do you digitize, market, pitch? Turnover vs profit? Recruitto grow? Balance risk?

These are just the fundamentals, which are no doubt found in everybusiness course. But if we can embed them into all courses and notjust as a modular element, we can begin to really shift attitudes toentrepreneurship. It simply can’t be just "today’s the day we’ll learnhow to set up a business." It has to be inherent in the course designand structure, and demonstrated consistently that an entrepreneurialcareer is a real option for students. Students like them.

Our colleges know this, having turned out generations of mechanics,joiners, hairdressers, fitness instructors. College principals know that itis here that the future lies, and they are committed to that journeyknowing they are many obstacles along the way.

It would be wrong, however, to assume these skills can simply betaught. It’s not about textbook application leading to success. It isknowledge applied with attitude. An attitude of confidence, self-beliefand ambition.

The GEM study has called on universities to work to nurture theentrepreneurial spark that is developing in graduates by enhancingtheir provision of enterprise activities for their alumni. Suggestionsinclude coaching facilities for alumni; opportunities to meet highquality potential investors, customers or suppliers; and honours forthose who try to create international businesses.

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The Confidence

Again we lack any substantial quantitative data to evidence the trendsin young business start-ups coming out of the education system. In itsabsence, we have to presume that those limited instances - those0.5% who did set up a business - come from families with SMEexperience or a degree of private wealth. It's just what we know to betrue.

To liberate the possibility of the many, rather than the few, embarkingon business, we have to de-risk the process. The practicalities are thefirst part – but the second is purely financial. We need to provide thefinance which instils a sense of responsibility but without the fear ofdebt.

Perhaps that could be done in the form of college or university basedinvestment banks. But this needs to be more than a bank; it is anincubator that’s a helping hand, a holding hand. The institution couldbring a whole new meaning to the term “corporate parent.”

Institutions could provide start up finance for materials or equipment,perhaps even benefiting from a degree of collective bargaining. Theycould deliver payroll functions, tax advice, even IT infrastructure. All ofthese tend to exist already within an institution's structures.

They could also provide encouragement to collaborate, to bringtogether the web designer and the fitness instructor, and think whatmight be.

They could provide loans on reasonable rates where the profit isrecycled to liberate further lending, much like a credit union. Theinstitution becomes a shareholder in the truest sense – carrying the riskin the early days so that the benefits can be shared by the“community" of both place and interest.

In the last three years, Scotland has gone from being in the fourthquartile of Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rates up tothe second quartile. And yet we are still falling behind the rest of theUK whose TEA rate sits at 9.8% to our 6.9%. This growth came from

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graduates, and whilst it is small at the moment, there is so much morewe can do to nurture it and really push Scotland into becoming thatinnovation nation again.

Much of this progress has come through necessity rather than bydesign. Now is the time to provide the architecture under which allScots, regardless of background or private wealth, are supported tostart out with a start up. It will be a significant act of public service tomake that change, but one which will create the decent employers,wealth creators and indeed distributors of the future.

“We will start with no traditions. We will start with ideals.”

These words were spoken almost a century ago by the great JamesMaxton MP. Perhaps we must leave our traditional view of publicservice behind and embrace a more entrepreneurial Scotland, one thatbenefits the many not the few.

This article was inspired by the writings of Carol Craig.

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Katherine Trebeck, Francis Stuart (Oxfam Scotland)

‘By building a more dynamic and faster growing economy wewill increase prosperity, be better placed to tackle Scotland’shealth and social challenges, and establish a fairer and moreequal society.’

Scottish Government, 2011

This presumption is false. It ignores the failure of decades of economicgrowth to change the lives of too many Scots who still face prematuremortality, economic inactivity, mental and physical ill-health, and pooreducational attainment. In some parts of Scotland more than one infive adults are being prescribed drugs for anxiety and depression. Inthese communities – the communities where Oxfam works – theeconomic and social policies pursued in recent years have largely beenineffective in reducing deprivation, while unquestioningly prioritisingeconomic growth has produced social and environmental damage.

Glasgow, where most of Oxfam’s work in Scotland is undertaken,demonstrates how the imposition of a narrow model of economicdevelopment impacts upon communities and individuals. It illustrateshow pursuit of money - a very partial type of financial asset –undermines social and human assets: our friends, our familyrelationships and our health. This is most manifestly evident inGlasgow’s growing health inequalities.

Up until 1981 the gradient of poor health in Glasgow mirrored that ofsimilarly-sized UK and European regions. Since then, however, healthinequalities have deepened for reasons beyond material deprivation.Glasgow’s level and variation of income deprivation is the same as inLiverpool and Manchester. Yet Glasgow’s poor health manifests itself

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FROM TRICKLE DOWN GROWTH TO COLLECTIVE PROSPERITY

in premature male mortality with a rate 30% higher than in thesecomparable cities; suicide is 70% higher; there are 32% more violentdeaths; and 225% more alcohol-related deaths. These excesses onlyemerged in the last two or three decades – a time when the Scottisheconomy grew by almost 2% each year and when spending on socialproblems and social welfare doubled.

Asking why this is the case, rather than blaming individuals involved,reveals the uncomfortable path Glasgow pursued over the last fewdecades. The mode of economic development (premised on a trickledown from wealth creation) pursued from the 1980s onwards seemedto intensify anxiety over image and status, compelling people intomaterialistic pursuits that damaged wellbeing and led to harmfulbehaviours (such as alcohol and drug misuse). Whereasdeindustrialisation has been somewhat managed and mitigated inother old industrial areas, the West of Scotland lost the greatestnumber of jobs as a proportion of its total employment. And whileregeneration models in comparable cities also incorporated ‘lifestyle’and consumption, Glasgow’s economic development appears to beparticularly service-based and consumerist. Once one of the world’sleading industrial cities, Glasgow is now the UK’s largest shoppingdestination outside of London.

Glasgow shows how the transition to a narrow model of economicgrowth and reliance on trickle down fails to reduce inequalities – or torevive communities rendered redundant by the prioritisation of financeover people and of pounds over participation. The experience ofOxfam’s partners in Glasgow is that development of shops, businessparks and infrastructure under the ambit of regeneration has notequated to a reduction in local unemployment – jobs created are oftentaken by people from outside the area and displace jobs in other localbusinesses. Physical improvements have focused on businessdevelopment and consumption-based activities but, despite decades ofconsiderable investment, these have not significantly reversed thecomparative fortunes of disadvantaged communities.

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Of course Glasgow is but a case study for the wider economic focus ofScotland and the UK over the past 30 years. Inherent in the dominant,but inadequate, economic model were the assumptions that:

Wealth creation will ‘trickle down’ to benefit all.

Wealth creation is more important than wealth distribution.

Market freedom is more important than community wellbeing orindividual security.

Local economic development premised on retail and services issustainable (economically, environmentally and socially).

Money spent on bricks and mortar, rather than on enhancingcommunities themselves, will improve the socio-economiccircumstances of vulnerable neighbourhoods.

Any jobs are better than none, regardless of quality; work in andof itself explicitly makes a good society; and paid work makesthe most valuable contribution to society.

How and what wealth is created and distributed has been ignored inthe drive to simply increase it. When the economy grinds to a halt, thecommunities Oxfam works with are left high and dry by forces beyondtheir control.

The debate about public service reform - through the work of theChristie Commission - has rightly come round to the idea that buildingindividual and community control is crucial to good public services andpositive outcomes for people. Yet when it comes to the economy, theonly consideration seems to be how we promote economic growthand inward investment. The wider purpose of economic activity, andthe level of community and individual control in dictating thatdirection, is not considered.

This has led to a position where over the past 25 years

The wages of the top 1% of earners has risen at more thantwice the rate for the poorest 10%.

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Scotland’s richest households are now 273 times wealthier thanScotland’s poorest households.

40% of Scots in poverty are now in work.

Increasing labour-market flexibility has foisted increased risksonto individuals to the detriment of family and community life.

Many community assets such as parks and green space havebeen lost or devalued.

Increased materialism and consumerism has resulted in debt andenvironmental damage whilst singularly failing to increase truesatisfaction.

Only 22% of Scots feel they can influence local decisions.

Poor people are stigmatised and scapegoated through social andpolitical discourse, particularly from the UK Government andsections of the media, which labels people as ‘scroungers’,‘cheats’ and ‘undeserving’.

Reflecting on these injustices, it is perhaps unsurprising that peopleexperiencing poverty are more likely to die early and spend more oftheir shorter lives unwell.

Measuring the New prosperity

‘Most of us would define genuine wealth in terms of theconditions of our relationships…the social cohesion of ourneighbourhoods and the quality of our children’s play. Wewouldn’t tend to measure wealth in terms of our militaryspending, war, the development of prisons, the cutting downof ancient forests, or increases in the [stock market]’

Mark Anielski, 2003

So how do we move towards a society and an economy where wedon’t simply seek to increase economic growth without any concernfor who benefits and instead measure and share genuine wealth?

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In order to achieve this sustainable and socially-just Scotland, thereneeds to be a re-framing of politics so that we nurture what matters tothe people of Scotland. We must develop a better way of measuringour collective prosperity, beyond just narrow economic growth, inorder to re-conceptualise what constitutes the ‘success’ of oureconomy and the ‘success’ of communities and individuals.

None of this is to say that economic growth is or isn’t important. To behonest an academic debate about economic growth is of little interest.The key debate – or at least the key starting point for any debate– is toask what should be the primary purpose of government and theeconomy? In Oxfam’s view the answer is not to promote economicgrowth. Given the increasing evidence that poverty is both a keysocietal cost and a driver of government spending, combined with thefact that more equal societies do better, reducing poverty andinequality would be a better focus. That is why Oxfam believes weneed a Poverty Commissioner to put poverty reduction at the heart ofgovernment, to ensure spending decisions are poverty proofed, and tosupport communities to challenge government policies and privatesector actions that do not contribute to socio-economic equality.

We also need better measures of success. In fairness to the ScottishGovernment, the National Performance Framework is a reasonablestarting point – setting out the government’s overarching purpose andencompassing a range of high-level targets, strategic objectives,national outcomes, and indicators. Yet economic growth, measured byGross Domestic Product, still sits at the top of the framework anddictates much of the subsequent policy. This is clearly evident in recentpolicy and legislation including the Better Regulation Bill with its dutyon regulators ‘to contribute to economic growth’ as well as proposedchanges to Scotland’s planning system which seeks to put ‘growth atthe forefront’.

Pursuing real prosperity, encapsulated by a consensual measure thatcaptures what is important to people, would help shift the focus of ourattention and the efforts of our policy-makers so that they sustain oursociety, and do not simply kowtow to the economy. It would lead to

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the prioritisation and reward of social goods (relationships, recycling,mutuality, play, healthy spaces and so on) as opposed to short-termeconomic gain for the fortunate few.

Developed through widespread public consultation with almost 3,000people in Scotland, the Oxfam Humankind Index enables Scotland tomeasure itself by those aspects of life that make a real difference topeople. The Index is an attempt to support a move away from aneconomy and society based on inequalities of wealth and pursuit ofrelative status, and towards an economy and society which promoteshealth (mental and physical) and equality, and reduces poverty,inequalities and overconsumption. Importantly, because Scotland’spoorest communities are so often excluded from mainstream decisionmaking, we made particular effort to involve ‘seldom heard’ groupswhen constructing the Index.

OOxfam Humankind Index – sub-domains and weightings

Sub-domain Weight

Affordable, decent home / a safe and secure home to live in 11

Being physically and mentally healthy 11

Living in a neighbourhood where you can enjoy going outside and having a clean and healthy environment 9

Having satisfying work to do (paid or unpaid) 7

Having good relationships with family and friends 7

Feeling that you and those you care about are safe 6

Access to green spaces / wild spaces / social / play areas 6

Work / secure work / suitable work 6

Having enough money to pay the bills and buy what you need 6

Having a secure source of money 5

Access to arts, culture, interest, stimulation, learning, hobbies, leisure activities 5

Having the facilities you need locally 4

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Sub-domain Weight

Getting enough skills and education to live a good life 4

Being part of a community 4

Having good transport to get to where you need to go 4

Being able to access high-quality services 3

Human rights / freedom from discrimination / acceptance / respect 3

Feeling good 2

It is clear that Scots don’t want huge pots of cash. They want goodhealth, a secure home, a pleasant environment in which to live,satisfying work, and a stable, secure income that allows them to carefor their families and to take part in society. We believe the results ofthe Index offer a platform for policy makers showing what is importantto the people of Scotland.

Of course such a measurement will only be of help if it actually affectspolicy change. That is why Oxfam has developed a Humankind IndexPolicy Assessment Tool to help monitor and evaluate the impact ofgovernment policies and private sector activity on the HumankindIndex. We hope policy makers and others will engage with this tooland move towards more holistic assessments of proposed policies andtheir net contribution to society.

Whether it be forthcoming legislation, the Scottish Government'sBudget or debates about Scotland's constitutional future, theHumankind Index - as a reflection of the priorities of the people ofScotland - is more important than ever. We hope the Labour party,and others, build on this work to put community control at the heartof Scotland’s economic development policies.

Some of the content for this article is taken from the recent Oxfamreport Our Economy: Towards a New Prosperity setting out OxfamScotland’s vision for the economy:policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-economy-towards-a-new-prosperity-294239

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Drew Smith MSP

Parliamentary democracies have evolved all over the world accordingto the national contexts in which their institutions have been forged.Their procedures reflect the circumstances of their creation and, inmost, their legislatures act to check and balance the power ofexecutive authority.

Parliaments are places of ministerial scrutiny, for legislativedeliberation, and for national debate. Each of these functions arereflected in the foundation of the Scottish Parliament, but in the caseof Holyrood, other hopes for its function and form were also entwinedat its beginning, and these reflected the desires of Scotland's peoplefor a new politics. The devolution ideal was for a Parliament whichwas not a re-convention of the old Scots Parliament, not a mini-Westminster and not a super-council. The ambition of Holyrood'sfounders was for a Parliament which was easy to access, whichreflected the people it serves and which was participative, with clearmechanisms which allowed the public to influence its business and itsconsiderations. Laudable and still relevant aims, but it is also true thatmany of the processes which were created for and by the ScottishParliament were almost as much a reaction against the practices ofothers as a vision of a different way of doing things based on newideas. Its electoral system, for example, was famously a compromisewhich remains little-loved by anyone, and the rhetoric of Parliamentexercising power in partnership with the executive has fallen by theway to an unfortunately considerable degree.

The Scottish Labour Party is within its rights to point to the ScotlandAct of the 1997 Labour government as Holyrood's founding documentand it is because of this statute that Scottish Ministers exercise their

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power on behalf of the Crown, which remains the constitutionalsource of government's authority across Britain. Indeed even anindependent Scotland would, according to the Scottish National Party,retain the Crown and therefore inherit the concept of the Crown asthe source of legitimate power in the land. Yet Holyrood has otherantecedents too. The cross-party and beyond-party ConstitutionalConvention, itself a culmination of earlier campaigns and ideas,produced the key reports which influenced the shape, feel and voice ofthe Scottish Parliament we now have. Their deliberations, their idealsand their mistakes, are as much part of Holyrood's founding as theScotland Act, or the plans of the Consultative Steering Group whichdraw up many of the rules which the Parliament adopted for itself in1999. A thread running through the fabric woven by theConstitutional Convention also reflected even older ideas about fromwhere sovereignty really stems, and the decision of Tony Blair'sgovernment to put the question of a Scottish Parliament to the peoplegives it an added legitimacy beyond that of local government or manyother Scottish institutions. The Scottish Parliament's relationship withsome of these other institutions remains unresolved, and indeed itstendency to exercise primacy over these bodies betrays thecontradictions in some of its principles put into practice, such as thegoal of subsidiarity and devolution beyond Edinburgh rather thansimply to it.

While Scotland will welcome a verdict in her current preoccupationwith the national question on 18 September 2014, a resolution to herlocal question will inevitably need to be found too, regardless of theoutcome in 2014. I have, for example, my own views about howsustainable it is for the Scottish Parliament to deny local governmentthe debate on their powers which it so jealously takes for itself. Whilelocal government continues to fight a rear-guard action to hang on towhat it has, it must also struggle with the bulk of the cuts in publicspending on the services for which it is responsible. In contrast, theScottish Parliament confidently demands more for itself while seekingto avoid implication in the reality of what is happening in public

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CHANGING SCOTLAND REQUIRES CHANGING HOLYROOD

services, or to face scrutiny about the decisions taken in and around itsown precincts, and those of the Scottish Government.

Complaining about power abuses and lamenting lack of partnership indecision-making are, of course, the hardy perennials of those whohave proximity to power but do not themselves wield it. Meanwhilethose who wish to pull local levers will always be resentful of centralcontrol. Labour's history has largely been a centralising one, reflectingthe left's lust for change which is, at its most simple, class-based ratherthan geographically motivated. That said, what used to be calledmunicipal socialism remains remarkable, more for the extent of itsachievements, rather than the limitations of towns halls as places ofradicalism. The Glasgow Guarantee, which the Scottish Governmentitself has admitted is Scotland's biggest policy commitment to tacklingyouth unemployment, is just one example of how ideas and principlecan be developed and put into practice by politicians who are notparliamentarians. Devolution itself is, of course, an example ofLabour's intermittent enthusiasm for decentralisation; as is JohannLamont's clear call for Scottish Labour's Devolution Commission tomove beyond and away from consideration of Holyrood reformthrough the increasingly facile 'more powers' prism.

Regardless of the powers which Holyrood exercises, or watchesMinisters exercise, it is increasingly clear that the way the ScottishParliament goes about its business will have to change. TheCommittees once lauded as the jewel in devolution's crown are simplyfailing to set an agenda of their own at present; their law-proposingpower remains almost unique but rarely used. Some will,understandably enough, say that this has always been the case andthat Labour and Liberal MSPs did not scrutinise the previous ScottishExecutive any more closely than SNP backbenchers currently do theirown Ministers. If this is true, then perhaps they did a better job ofpretending. Whatever the policy debate to be had now, it is worthremembering that, for example, free personal care, before it wassubsequently adopted by the Executive, was originally a policypromoted by a Holyrood committee at a time when relevant Ministerswere not in support. Compare and contrast this with the Justice

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Committee's recent scrutiny of Kenny McAskill's local court closuresprogramme where SNP Members of the Committee voted in favour ofclosures after hearing evidence from campaigns to keep the courtsopen which some of them were themselves actively involved insupporting. For an example of the partisan behaviour of theConveners, the shameless spectacle of the Education CommitteeConvener who, when faced with a scandal over the EducationSecretary's behaviour in wishing to sack the chair of a college board,toured the TV studios – not to explain how his Committee wouldexamine the issue, but to defend the Education Secretary in advance ofhearing any of the actual evidence.

Beyond how individuals choose to use their positions there does, ofcourse, remain a problem that the role of Conveners has still notproperly emerged as an alternate route to promotion for MSPs. Mediainterest in the work that is done by cross-party committees continuesto fall, caught in a vicious cycle whereby less scrutiny of thegovernment results in less scrutiny of the committee and thus declininginfluence of Parliament as a whole, and no-doubt poorer policy choicesoverall.

Scrutiny of the current government is, categorically, being held back bysome of the Parliament's more optimistic procedures. For example, thelack of recourse available to the Presiding Officer, or any other MSP,when a Minister makes a statement to the Scottish Parliament which isdemonstrably, or later shown to be, simply untrue. This is a situationwhich would not and could not be tolerated by a Speaker of theCommons, or the rules that House has evolved. A longer runningproblem, and one which recent changes to Parliament's sitting timeshaven't noticeably helped, is the ludicrously short time which MSPstake to consider final amendments to legislation which then results ineffectively incidental debates about the overall principle behind thefinal bills passed. Likewise, real post-legislative scrutiny, mostlyconsidered to be essential in a unicameral assembly, remains a far off,if not far out, aspiration.

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CHANGING SCOTLAND REQUIRES CHANGING HOLYROOD

The answer for MSPs, of whatever party, interested in trying to restoregreater integrity to the Parliament's systems, cannot simply be tocomplain or even just to blame the current party of government.Scottish Labour and the Scottish National Party are different beasts andour terms of internal debate come from different traditions. WhenLabour next return to government in Edinburgh it is inconceivable thata Labour parliamentary group could continue to support an executivein office without a single back-bench rebellion on any issue ever votedupon. Such a scenario is as unlikely as the current SNP group speakingout about matters of domestic policy when they are themselves facedwith their own leadership continually changing their views about keyconstitutional issues such as the monarchy, defence or the currency.

The answer, for Labour, is neither to ape the SNP's discipline or topretend that no 'patsy' questions were ever asked by Labour MSPs atFirst Ministers Questions or elsewhere. A much better approach, in myview, would be for Labour to commit to follow reviews of theParliament's powers with a serious, and independent, look at howParliament itself is reformed. How can it become a more attractivespectacle, and a place where power is more genuinely shared betweenthose who are members of the executive and those who are not? Howcan it become a place where the influence of those it represents is feltmore keenly throughout its terms of session and across its work? Thecurrent Presiding Officer has made a number of changes, the mostwelcome of which is the addition of more topicality in questions to thegovernment, but both general and portfolio questions continue to failas opportunities for genuine scrutiny. Unlike Westminster, Holyroodhas no official opposition and those who have responsibility, to thepublic as well their parties, to shadow Minsters may not even be calledby the system of lottery questions to challenge those who do holdpower. In the absence of a liaison committee, the head of governmentis not subjected to the kind of detailed questioning that could add tothe small, and unavoidably partisan, opportunity offered by FMQs.

The Parliament's petitions committee remains a vitally important, ifunderused, means of access but what may have been seen asrevolutionary in the 1990s might now be considered fairly minimal in

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terms of a genuinely empowering route to decision-makers.Associated institutions such as the Parliament's early 'Civic Forum' -conceived as something almost akin to a sounding chamber - quicklypassed by and no consideration seems to have been given to whetherit had at its heart a kernel of an idea worth trying in other ways.Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament continue to have someroutine access to aspects of business, including attending as regularCommittee witnesses, but potentially more formal connections whichcould have been made between Parliament and other groups, whichhold democratic mandates, such as local government, Scottish MPs orMEPs have not been created, and only limited joint-workingarrangements exist. Before even considering how reform couldencompass groups further away from day-to-day politics it cannot beright that in a small country so little is done together. The aftermathof a referendum, which has the potential to resolve Scotland's currentconstitutional uncertainty and which may lead to a further discussionof the Parliament’s powers, may well represent an opportune momentto consider whether partnership, if not co-decision, on certain areasmight be a possibility worthy of exploration.

Any commitment to review Holyrood's inadequacies - or moreoptimistically its further potential - should be made in advance of anelection, and should not be tied to specific reforms before they can beproperly considered. Nor indeed should it be linked to any particularconstitutional outcome, be it independence or further reform ofdevolution. Instead Labour should commit to broad principles ofbetter government and ask for cross-party support for these to beexamined and recommendation made. No incoming government willbe keen to deliver an easier time for their opposition, or often thepublic, or to to give away the upper hand they have just fought anelection to win. But, Labour's experience of opposition at Holyroodshould be a salutary one, and one which we resolve to being part ofputting right, not just for the sake of frustrated opposition politicians,but because of the value we could still place on the prize of a newpolitics in Scotland.

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Anas Sarwar MP

Today in Scotland it appears that the only change on offer isconstitutional change. Not change to the way the economy is run sothat it serves everyone equally; not change to the banking system sothat businesses get the support they need to grow and develop; notchange in social security so that it helps those in need and gives agenuine hand up to those looking for support.

Rather, we have two governments putting their own obsessions beforethe needs of the country; one government slavishly following aneconomic programme which is clearly not working and anotherdetermined to put their own minority obsession ahead of the country’spriorities.

Across the UK both governments are led by parties that put the politicsof division ahead of the real challenges. One government which iscontrolled by those who seek to divide over the issue of Europe, and inScotland a government determined to divide by which part of theUnited Kingdom you come from.

That is why Scottish Labour has to offer more than just constitutionalchange. We must offer real social and economic change and I believethere is a real desire for it.

In Scotland today growth is down and unemployment is up, householdincomes are being squeezed while household costs are on the rise.

If ever there was a time for a change in direction this is it and that iswhy Labour must rise to the challenge of delivering social, economicand environmental justice at a time of austerity. And I believe we canbest do that by following a simple course and base the politicaldecisions we make on the values we hold as Labour members, the

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same ones we signed up to when we joined and that hold as truetoday as they have ever done.

And while two years out from the General Election it is not possible toset out what the Labour manifesto will look like in detail, we can setout the framework of values and principles around which we shouldbuild our manifesto offer. After 13 years in government it is moreimportant, now we are in opposition, to define now the values andprinciples under which we will govern in future.

The principles of equality, community, fairness, solidarity and socialjustice are not remnants of the past but forces of good for the future. Ibelieve we can best deliver for the communities we seek to representby using these as our guiding principles.

Labour must stand up to and challenge the notion that Labour canonly deliver in times of plenty but that in times of austerity andeconomic downturn only a Tory government will work. Clearly theevidence of today’s economy proves that wrong, but it also has to beLabour’s job to set out why, now more than ever, you need a Labourgovernment working for all.

For Labour that means setting out why the best way to promote socialjustice in times of austerity is to deliver economic justice.

But there is not much economic justice to shout about under thecurrent UK and Scottish governments. Today we see globalcompanies making billions of pounds in profit but paying not a pennyin tax. And yet we see those companies rewarded, not with publicscorn and condemnation but millions of pounds in government grants.

That’s not just economic immorality on the part of the company, it’spolitical immorality on the part of government for rewarding suchbehaviour.

But government does have the power to act, even when money istight.

Every year the Scottish public sector spends approximately �10 billionon procurement. What I want to see is the use of that spending power

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DELIVERING SOCIAL JUSTICE THROUGH ECONOMIC CHANGE

to drive, not just growth in the economy, but changed behaviour inthe private sector. Procurement should be more than just achievingvalue for money for the taxpayer but adding value to the tax moneywe spend.

Government should be using procurement to support wider outcomes.Rather than just thinking about the end product, the school, the road,the railway or the bridge, government should raise its ambitions andthink about its wider role.

And there are three areas in which I believe we could focusprocurement to support behavioural change:

Firstly, to take action on tax dodging and the use of tax havens. Ibelieve there is strong public support for banning companies who areinvolved in avoiding their fair share of tax from accessing public sectorcontracts, bringing tax justice to public procurement.

Secondly, to extend the payment of the living wage into the privatesector for employees working on public contracts and using thepowers of procurement to deliver a positive employment agenda. For astart this means a public apology and compensation for those whoseworking lives have been scarred by blacklisting. But we also have toaddress the wider issue of tax-payer funded contracts being used toperpetuate the practices of low pay employers.

Thirdly, using procurement of public projects to deliver othergovernment priorities. Government could support SMEs to access verylarge contracts by not bundling up contracts into multi-million ornationwide delivery models, support skills development by building inproportionate apprentice and skills development expectations,supporting local economies and environment by ensuring products aresourced as locally as possible. All of the above is possible ifgovernment has the will.

It’s simple, the requirement to lock into the procurement system a dutyto ensure that procurement promotes sustainable economic, social andenvironmental well-being; the holy grail of the triple bottom line, whatI would call the common good principle.

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But procurement is just one vehicle to change the economy andchange the country. We must go further to reform the economy.

In today’s global economy it is inevitable that over time labour jobs willgo where labour costs are cheapest. That is why government must actnow to shape our education system, align our further and highereducation establishments, develop our skills and apprenticeprogrammes to prepare today’s generation for tomorrow’s economy.

The recognition that someone out there is always going to seek toundercut our jobs market on cost means we must rebuild and reshapeour economy. We mustn’t just focus on what we do best but also onwhat we can do better. And that means investing in a skills basedeconomy and equipping the country and its people with the right toolsto flourish.

And alongside people development, government must also invest nowto put in place the infrastructure to support and sustain a moderneconomy.

But government will have to do so with much tighter financialconstraints, perhaps over as long a period of 10 years, and thisrequires a fundamental rebalancing of our economy so that, yes, itcreates wealth, but the wealth is used for a purpose.

This will not only require tough choices from today’s political leaders, itwill require different choices, ignoring the short term for the benefit ofthe long term, changing spending priorities today as a way of boostinggrowth for tomorrow.

Such rebalancing must be based on our values and must recognise theneed for economic justice. In my constituency today people are beinghanded food parcels. Just a short trip away millionaires are beinghanded a tax cut. There’s no fairness in that.

In some global companies who operate in Scotland, the cleaner on theshop floor is paying more in tax on their income than the companyitself, despite multi-billion pound turnovers. Where is the economicjustice in that?

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DELIVERING SOCIAL JUSTICE THROUGH ECONOMIC CHANGE

It’s not enough just for politicians to call for corporate responsibility. Ifcorporations are unwilling to fulfil their obligations, to recognise theyhave a public duty to pay their fair share, then politicians must beprepared to act to address this behaviour.

I have already mentioned procurement as one ‘carrot’ to enticebehavioural change. A ’stick’ approach might well be required andexploration of country by country reporting or reform of the tax systemto reflect in-country transactions are also worth considering.

And because our values don’t stop at borders, because we don’t justwant corporate responsibility at home but right across the world, weshould be taking action to ensure global responsibilities are met.Today, developing countries lose three times more from tax evasionthan they receive in aid. Sadly, economic immorality isn’t just practisedhere in the UK and that is why we need to work in partnership withothers, not stand in isolation, to secure real change.

But those of us on the left also have to look at rebalancing theeconomy in other ways.

Firstly, by taking a principled and values based stance against GeorgeOsborne and the Tory right’s plans to shrink the size of the state to alevel below that of the post-war average.

We need to do more on making the case for intervention in times ofausterity rather than relying solely on public sector cuts as a way ofbalancing the books and by evidencing how intervention can deliveron our values.

Both Ed’s recognise the value of supporting short term borrowing tosupport investment in infrastructure. Indeed, Labour has placed capitalinvestment as one of its key economic planks to restore growth to theeconomy.

Secondly, the left could make a robust argument, again based on ourvalues, for substituting tax rises for some of the planned cuts. Themillionaires tax cut should be reversed and the bankers bonus

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repeated, both measures focussed on ensuring those with thebroadest shoulders bear the biggest burden.

Thirdly, government could do more to ensure it was not stripping outdemand and consumption from the market. Supporting the LivingWage and driving up the household incomes of lower and middleincome households will help deliver greater equality but also meangreater spending to help to promote economic growth.

Yet lower and middle income households are the two groups whoappear to have been targeted by this government, with all theevidence showing that the most affluent households have come offlightest under the government’s austerity measures.

All of the above measures cut right to the heart of the Labourmovement and our political values. We don’t just believe in buildingnew schools or railways because they are good things to have(although they are) and we don’t just believe in re-balancing taxrevenues more fairly because it’s the right thing to do (which it is) butbecause by carrying out these types of government interventions weare supporting people into work, we are driving up living standards,cutting down on wasted talent and giving hope to future generations.All aspirations that sit comfortably with our values.

The last few years have not been easy. It’s also pretty clear that thenext few years are going to be just as tough as the global economyshows no signs of recovering to pre-slump levels.

These demonstrate the need for real change now. Despite the prism ofconstitutional politics Labour must continue to focus on the real battlesand not solely about which politicians have which powers in whichbuilding.

Because that is why Labour exists, to fight for equality and socialjustice but crucially to put our principles and values into practice.

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Daniel Johnson, Duncan Hothersall

Scottish political debate is dominated by the twin policy Goliaths of theconstitution and the economy, to the point where the two oftenmerge. The question which both sides of the independence debateseem to be answering is: in what constitutional arrangement wouldScotland be better off? But surely the real question is this: how do wemake our economy work better for Scots?

The priority of economic issues is not in doubt. But simply redrawingborders does nothing to tackle the economic issues and challengesfaced by Scotland. What is needed is a radical reworking andrealignment of our economy, focusing on the people that work in itand the relationship the economy has with society. It is this radicalidea of driving power to people, empowering them and organisingaround their needs and abilities which lies at the heart of successfuleconomies, and also lies at the heart of devolution.

What’s Wrong?

Scottish economic policy is stuck in a laissez-fair rut. While themisguided monetarist policies of Margaret Thatcher may havetriggered the economic collapse of once dominant industries,subsequent governments have done little to correct them. Throughthe 1990s and 2000s governments, both SNP and Labour, pursued astrategy of deregulation and non-intervention. While this clearlybrought rewards for the white collar, service sector workers inScotland’s cities, it did little for those living in former steel towns or inthe shadow of dockyard cranes.

Oil is the other dominant feature of the Scottish economy, to thepoint where discussion of the constitution invariably leads to discussion

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of oil. Its role and what it could provide for Scotland are constantlyreplayed. But this role is also troubling. Without oil receipts, Scotlandwould have a deficit of around 14%1, and fluctuations in either theprice of oil or the supply from North Sea fields has a dramatic impacton the health of the Scottish tax receipt. Surely we want an economythat works on its own merits rather than relying on geological goodfortune?

Our national economic well-being requires a reinvention of oureconomic architecture. Relying on banks and oil is neither the basis fora secure economy nor the route to an inclusive one. The Labourtraditions of equity, solidarity and mutual industry should form a newand radical ambition to transform the Scottish economy.

This ambition is a radical rejection of the neo-liberal insistence that therole of the state in economic matters must be confined to the macrolevel - that government must confine itself to being an arch- regulatorand nothing more. Nor do we seek to turn the clock back to acorporatist model where the state seeks to take control and ownershipof the economy. The focus of this new perspective must be on therelationships within the economy and the mode of action must be thatof facilitator rather than either bystander or owner. This is why theprinciple of devolution is key; it is a focus on the relationship of theindividual and power. It is also why it is correct for the devolvedScottish government to champion this new economic perspective – it isbest placed to facilitate and influence within the wider economicframework of the UK.

What kind of economy do we want?

What does a devolved economy look like? Undoubtedly it would havea well-supported and active entrepreneurial element, underpinningindigenous enterprise and measuring success by not only economicoutput but popular involvement. Elsewhere in this publication KeziaDugdale sets out some stark statistics on the lack of entrepreneurship

1 Average budget deficit including capital expenditure, excluding North Sea Oil Revenue, between2007-2008 and 2011-2012, Table 2a, Government Expenditure and Revenue, The ScottishGovernment March 2013

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in Scotland and some excellent ideas about how to lift the level of thisactivity. A key plank of economic empowerment is building thecapacity for self-employment.

We also need to drive up the quality of work and the quality ofcompanies. Too often economic success for an employed individual ismeasured solely by wage levels. As Francis Stuart and KatherineTrebeck tell us in their contribution, there are many more, and moreimportant, measures of success. Job security for individuals, and with itthe economic security of families and communities, needs to bebrought to the fore. Sustainability of economic activity, and its rootingin communities, can give better long-term economic outcomes thanthe corporatism we see taking root in many parts of Scotland today.And security, health and job satisfaction are the real goals many aretrying to reach through their employment – not profit generation.

Better companies means, at the very least, breaking the cycle of “it’saye been” and embracing change. The Kaizen principle – a Japaneseapproach which involves every employee being encouraged to comeup with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis – has thepotential to drive major improvement if it can be instilled into theScottish economic psyche. We are not short of ideas for improvement,as many of us will know from our daily work. But how many feelpowerless to instigate the changes they see necessary? Kaizen means acommitment to improvement from the whole company. It involvessetting standards and then continually improving those standards. It isa cultural shift to which Scottish industry should aspire.

A devolved economy is also one in which vocational learning is worldclass, with a flexible college sector which recognises the need for part-time and full-time courses alongside self-led and online education.Local specialism can not only create centres of excellence but alsocontribute to community cohesiveness and a sense of economicidentity which has been eroded in recent years. And while allowinglarge industry to dictate vocational training can be unhealthy,partnership working with employers, large and small, can help collegesto continuously improve their offerings.

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How do we build it?

A critical element of any economic plan is an investment architecture.The devolved economy needs a new Scottish investment bankproviding capital and expertise, but more significantly it requires aframework for regional lending. A regional approach not only allowsfor local understanding to drive investment decisions, but enables thesort of smaller-scale and lower-barrier contributions which are criticalfor start-up and self-led businesses. Too much of today’s availablesmall-scale debt funding is locked behind barriers designed to reducerisk, while the risk-taking investment funds restrict themselves to largeinvestments which benefit only the already successful business. Thecloser the decision-makers are to the communities in which companiesare being formed, the better able they will be to assess risk moreeffectively. Too many potentially successful, if small-scale, businessesare denied the investment they need as a result of this structuralimbalance.

The Scottish Government must revitalise how it engages withenterprise. To effect the change we want to see in our companies, theScottish Government needs to do more than hold drinks receptionswith corporate executives and training courses for small businesses.This lazy and platidunal approach perpetuates a “Great Divide”between the private and public sectors which serves neitherparticularly well.

Programmes are needed to ensure that knowledge, practices, peopleand resources are shared and exchanged. Government must activelyseek out opportunities to work with the private sector to their mutualbenefit. Likewise effort must be put into ensuring that people andskills flow freely between public and private sectors. This would seekto promote innovation, spread best practice and deliver an economythat integrates private and public sector activity.

Key to devolution as an economic principle is a renewed focus on therelationship between the individual and the organisations within whichthey work. A new emphasis on workplace learning and peopledevelopment must be pursued. Successful companies and vibrant

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economies are underpinned by constant renewal of skills and capabilityat work. If we are to break the low-wage, low-opportunity cycle inwhich much of post industrial Scotland is stuck, we need a stepchange in how our companies support and develop their people.

Scotland must aim to have the best vocational education system in theworld. We must have apprenticeships that are rigorous anddemanding. We must ensure that university courses are relevant anddevelop useful skills. Too much of our education system has a mindsetof “Academic=best, vocational=second best”. In France and Germany,the brightest and best go to engineering school. In Scandinavia,apprenticeships are competitive and understood to be hard work.

We must aim to do nothing short of matching and bettering thesesystems.

Radical change

The economy is a vitally important aspect of public policy in Scotland.Scottish industry has a both proud and tragic history. The key tobuilding a vibrant, dynamic economy cannot be about shifting wherenational state power lies. It has to be about changing the relationshipthat individuals have with the organisations within which they work,and changing the relationship that enterprise has with government.That is why the principle of devolution can be applied as much to theeconomy as it can to government: in both instances it is aboutempowering people and changing the relationship between powerand people.

This essay, in keeping with the themes of this pamphlet, hasdeliberately sought to set out aspirations rather than policy. Much ofwhat we seek will not be easy to achieve and requires radical changein the way government thinks and behaves. But if Scotland is to be aneconomic power house once again, we are convinced that these arethe ambitions we must have.

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Richard Kerley

We’re recognising the 65th birthday of the NHS this year. 65 years old– the age at which we used to assume all males would all start toreceive the state pension; another of the ‘pillars’ of the Welfare State.

Both the NHS and social protection are changing, of course. Manypeople will now wait longer for a state pension, just as many of us findthe NHS very different from what we can remember from when wefirst came into contact with it. We can also be certain that there ismore change to come, in these two key features as in so many otheraspects of the Welfare State. Such changes will happen whatever partyis in government; whatever the constitutional status of the country welive in; and whatever government – in London or in Edinburgh – takesthese decisions. What we need to focus on is why such changes mightbe needed, and how they can be best effected to make betterprovision for those currently not particularly well served by our publicservices.

The manner in which those aspects of public service provision that wecasually label the ‘Welfare State’ are sometimes discussed is often veryunhelpful, and reflects badly on the assumptions that political partiesmake about the citizens whom they hope will elect them to office andpower. It sometimes appears that politicians seeking to gain and holdoffice often treat the people who elect them as susceptible to wildclaims, to be easily swayed and unable to assess practical options andchoices themselves.

Broadly speaking the terms of such political exchange can becategorised as parties in opposition condemning the party, or parties,in government for either irreparably destroying the fabric of a centralpart of the Welfare State, or not doing enough to sustain it anddevelop it in the manner self-evidently needed. The key characteristic

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PUBLIC SERVICES – COULD WE DO BETTER?

of this discussion – if we can call it that – is an assumption that thescale, shape and form of the components of the Welfare State aremutually reinforcing, consistent in their features and successfully fulfiltheir assumed objectives. This phenomenon is particularly marked inScotland as, in effect, what we created in 1997-1999 was a Parliamentfor public services. Reinforcing that emphasis on public services was analmost total reliance on financing through an appropriation fromWestminster – ‘the Scottish block’ – and a surge post-1999 on thevolumes of such revenues available. Holyrood was launched on a waveof increased public spending that is now being reined back and isunlikely to grow again at the rate it did in the 00s. Broadly speakingthe mark of achievement in the new Parliament was to proposespending more, with limited consideration on whether we mightactually spend very differently from the historic trajectory inherited aspart of the UK driven Welfare State.

None of this helps us as a society think about what extent, form andshape we might expect, and want, such provision to take in future: thelevel of taxes we pay; whether we pay fees or charges for someservices and at what level; and what services are provided throughsome form of local discretionary decision making and othersdetermined by central government. Such discussion also needs to takeaccount of the broader changes in social values and behaviours thathave emerged over time and continue to transform society and all ofus as members of that society.

It also needs to take account of how we have seen an expanding senseof what is assumed to be part of the array of public service provisionthat we now take to be an essential part of a network of stateprovided or sponsored services. Whether that array of public services isnow properly referred to as The Welfare State might also be part ofany such discussion. Is unquestioned access regardless of income orcircumstances to emergency hospital care in the same category as freebus travel for older people? Are discounted tickets to theatre andconcerts for unemployed people and those on other benefits ofequivalence in priority as adequate housing for all? The gradualdevelopment and emergence of this network of public services

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intended to create social solidarity, address market failure and helpthose disadvantaged by such failures is a confused tangle of provisionand assumption, often unexamined for years.

I want to argue and try to explain why – in a number of respects –what we now have, and what has emerged over the best part of acentury under governments (in Westminster and also now Holyrood) ofdifferent political parties has been far more tangled, and sometimesmutually contradictory, despite the best efforts of many of thoseinvolved.

I’ll do so by examining two often unexamined and different aspects ofhow various forms of public services are provided to us and try andsuggest a general approach we might apply to help us think abouthow we better prepare for change in the future. My focus here doesnot address any of the direct cash transfer payments of The WelfareState as these are discussed elsewhere in this publication.

Free at the point of use?

There are various of our public services where our consumption ofthem is (broadly) free at the point of use, and the contribution wemake is in whatever form we are able to make a contribution as acitizen – that is through the range of taxes we pay in various forms,whether these are direct or indirect. Such complex arrangements arenot unique to the United Kingdom because in many societies thepublic service resource mix is a blend of taxes, insurance, fees andcharges in varied proportions.

Our particular blend of these is not often publicly debated ordiscussed, except in the highly partisan terms of party conflict referredto above. The consequence of such a failure to examine and discusssuch things is that we find change emerging by default, rather thandebate and design, in a way that is considered by citizens in a studiedway and some general preferred direction arrived at.

Take the example of what we can broadly label as culture and leisure;not in the sense of a local authority department, but what we all dofor entertainment, self-education and enlightenment. As it happens,

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many aspects of these activities are organised or supported in the notfor profit sector by local authority departments, but often on a basisthat is itself confused and owes a great deal to historical legacy. If wewant to use a library anywhere we can borrow books and use otherservices, simply through use of a library card – at no charge. If wewant to use a gym or swimming pool owned by the same council wegenerally have to pay, perhaps discounted for age, or for a variety ofother circumstances. Go to a council or other public art gallery ormuseum, and for the general collection our access will be free;however if we want to go to the theatre, or attend a concert (alsooften in council owned or supported facilities) we shall have to pay.We just take such legacy arrangements as a given, whether longstanding (library book borrowing) or more recently re-established, suchas free access to the general collections of national galleries andmuseums.

Partly as a consequence of not publicly discussing or reviewing sucharrangements, the social outcomes of those arrangements are rarelyconsidered either. The argument for free access to libraries, galleriesand museums is based on arguments for open and equal access to ourcultural assets in a way that is available to all; an excellent aspiration.Yet current arrangements are far from achieving this. Entry to andusage of galleries, museums, concerts and theatre is demographicallyskewed toward the financially and socially privileged. In addition thereare the mystified and gratified overseas visitors, most of whom areused to paying an entry fee, even in countries where social provision isin some respects more extensive than in the UK. In addition, one of theperverse consequence of the current regime for access to galleries andmuseums is a direct function of governments making free accessavailable for the general public collection. In galleries across the UK theoutcome of this has been a growth in special exhibitions that canlegitimately be charged for (an example of what economists would calla perverse organisational incentive). In some public galleries a largeportion of the year (and of the galleries) is now dedicated to suchspecial exhibitions. In some cases, although I have not yet observed

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this in Scotland, the special exhibitions give some appearance of beingcontrived, presumably to enable charges to be levied.

Similarly, in the far more life critical health services of various kindsexperience and evidence shows us that there is social gradient tousage and uptake, despite the provision of services free at the point ofuse. The introduction of widespread age differentiated screeningopportunities – whether it be bowels or eye health has increasedscreening and increased the earlier diagnosis of various conditions, butit has done so on a basis that reaches a higher proportion of those inhigher social classes. Time after time and programme after programmewe introduce interventions labelled as universal which in reality benefitthe already privileged.

Access for all?

One of the foundation myths of the Welfare State as it emerged wasthat of equal and open access to all.

I use the term ‘myth’ because it was just that, and in some cases themyth was sustained by deliberate governmental deceit.

When selective education was widespread, we know that secondaryentry test scores – in parts of Wales for example – were manipulatedto ensure a lower proportion of girls passed because there were fewerplaces in selective girls’ schools. In health provision, specialist serviceshave always been concentrated in the larger conurbations, initiallybecause of the social dynamic of wealth and philanthropy that led tothe creation of voluntary hospitals and influenced by the locationpreferences of key decision makers. More recently, we have come torecognise that health interventions tend to be more successful whenmedical teams deal with lots of patients so constantly develop theirexpertise and achieve better outcomes for a greater proportion of thepatients they see. The provision consequences of that are clear andunsurprising. The best neuro and cardiac surgeons tend to be found inthe specialist centres; these are concentrated to maximise use offacilities and expertise and so not found in every district hospital. Thepositive results of concentration of stroke treatment response in

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Greater London shows the advantages of that, but there is a messagehere that does not go down well in areas that feel they may suffer aperceived loss.

One of the worrying examples of this is in the provision of highereducation in Scotland, where in various shapes and forms we have hadalternatives to the fee regime that applies in a manner that means, ineffect students in Scotland (and those from other EU countries outsidethe UK) can study at undergraduate level with no fee. In effect, overalmost 13 years, students here have had a fee-free regime whencompared to undergraduate degree education in England. The results– to date – have been interesting, and somewhat inconvenient for allthose who argue that ‘free’ higher education alone is self-evidentlyattractive to and beneficial for young people from poorer backgroundsand households with limited or no experience of higher education. Ourfigures for admission of students from such backgrounds does notshow that result. Indeed, two recent separate studies seem to showthat our record of encouraging entry into HE from such householdshas hardly budged over a decade and a half and more, and is worsethan can be found in England, although he impact there of muchhigher fees has not yet fully permeated through to intake figures. Feesalone are not the answer to increasing access into HE from lowerincome households.

If we want to look at a more everyday example we can consider thedisadvantages of the current arrangement we have for free bus travelfor older people. Country wide free bus travel was introduced by theLab–Lib Dem administration to support a better and improved sociallife amongst older people through mobility, partly as a means ofsustaining good health and ‘well-being’ into later years. It may do this,though the evidence is ambiguous and the outcome has not been fullyresearched over time. If it is beneficial, and I suspect it is for ‘younger’older people, it really only achieves this impact for people who actuallyhave a bus service near them going to where they want to go. Even inclose proximity to our major cities, access to bus services varies widely.Elsewhere, in many rural areas of Scotland and even parts of someurban and mixed areas bus services are limited and infrequent. The

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concessionary pass is in effect, a bus ‘voucher’ – of the kind Sir KeithJoseph favoured for school education – that cannot be used for freetravel in other forms of transport, whether taxis or voluntarycommunity transport; let alone fare-free travel by rail. Such anarrangement, which I estimate to have equivalent to a purchasingparity value of between �900 and �1200 per year, might be equivalentto about 3 months basic state pension for some tax payers and istherefore of very limited use to many notional beneficiaries.

What can we do?

First we have to be clear that there is considerable difference betweenwhat we can do and what we should do. I will always argue that if weexplore and tease out the ‘can do’ possibilities then that sometimeshelps us form some collective and shared views on what we should do.However, can & should are always interlinked in a complex mannerthat enables opponents to leap on any suggestion of open debate andany questioning of current norms of provision. Perhaps there is agreater tendency to this form of defensive attack in a Parliamentwhere in many issues there is a remarkable degree of tacit consensusacross most of the major parties. What we see has been described as apreference for ‘consensus over evidence’ in Scottish public policydecisions.

The debate is not an easy one to take on, and the Labour Party hassometimes avoided it, sometimes mishandled it. However we do needto have the courage to continue to promote such debate, not leastbecause as public awareness grows – and it will – those parties thatrefuse to address such matters publicly will be seen as evasive andweak. We should firmly opt for the stance that the citizens of thiscountry, and the electorate, are more thoughtful than we sometimesgive them credit for.

At the core of any debate that we might promote is a proposition thatthis is not simply a means of arguing for better controls onexpenditure, but also because, as I have instanced above, much of thatexpenditure does not reach the parts of society it is claimed andassumed to reach – and we all have a shared interest in that.

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Our representatives in Parliament should be taking every chance toquestion, explore and challenge on which policy decisions andlegislative change is introduced. This kind of forensic policy analysiscan attract fewer headlines and shorter coverage than the ‘shockhorror’ splash but over time it impacts on governments, partiallybecause it leads them to become doubtful of their prescriptions.

MSPs could also pay far more attention to those instances wherecampaigning organisations probe government policy and proposealternative solutions, even where it has developed as part of a broadercross party consensual climate. So, for example, Age Scotland isrunning such a campaign on free bus transport, arguing for theconcessionary travel pass to incorporate community transport ratherthan just service buses, and meeting potential cost consequencesthrough considering an increase in the age of eligibility to a commonage of 65 rather than 60 for new beneficiaries.

In the medium term and at a broader policy level we could plan for afuture Scottish Government to introduce and implement ‘policy impactaudits‘ for all future policy developments and legislative initiatives.Current protocols – even legislation – mandate or encourage variousassessments of proposed changes, yet rarely attempt to probe policyeffectiveness in the wider sense in prospective legislation. The office ofthe Auditor General for Scotland is limited in the extent to which it canassess policy effectiveness in so there are gaps in both prospect andretrospect. Change in understanding and exploring whether whatgovernment says it intends might actually be achieved is needed, and itcan be introduced.

Our public services – our Welfare State – have much complexity andoften address hard to reconcile, even if desirable, objectives. Changehere is not simply about cost and affordability – though both areimportant – but whether what we think we are achieving is actuallybeing achieved. It is often not; and we could do better.

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Sarah Boyack MSP

Last year, across Scotland, Labour councillors were elected in greaternumbers. They set out what they would do to use power – whether ingovernment or in opposition.

Across the country Labour candidates put forward positive practicalideas that chimed with people’s experiences and aspirations for theircommunities.

It was the first local election since the 1990s to be held separately fromanother election. For Labour our ambition was not to see the electionsas a stepping stone to another agenda, but as an opportunity to winpeople’s support for practical, forward-looking policies to invest inlocal services and to use scarce resources to best effect. Local issueswere to the fore with a Labour manifesto written locally in everycouncil seat where we stood candidates. Ours was not a top downprocess, it was about connecting Labour values of equality, fairness,social justice and solidarity with the needs and aspirations of localcommunities across Scotland.

We didn’t just see more Labour councillors elected – we saw a morerepresentative range of councillors elected, from different walks of life.We saw many first time candidates, significantly more womencouncillors and a modest increase in black and ethnic minoritycommunities elected. That didn’t happen by accident. It was the resultof a determined effort to modernise and open out our selectionprocesses following the Review of Labour in Scotland.

Councillors are direct community representatives taking the voice oflocal people to determine the priorities for delivering services andsetting the strategic direction for council officials. That’s why it mattersto Labour that our councillors reflect the make-up of our communities.

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DOUBLE DEVOLUTION: DEVO MARK TWO

Those Labour councillors have been busy implementing their electionpledges – whether in power as majority groups, as coalition partners,or as opposition councillors working constructively to improve people’squality of life across the country. Their pledges were not issued fromon high as a one-size-fits-all solution, but were developed by our localteams as a result of listening to local communities and consulting withinterest groups. They were built on Labour values of equality andfairness and were designed to support communities through tougheconomic times, with a focus on training and job creation to get localeconomies going again.

There are some fantastic initiatives, radical ideas and new ways ofdelivering services to make the most of the resources available.

Just to take training for example – there’s the Edinburgh Guarantee;Falkirk’s work with employers to give young people real opportunities;and Glasgow’s regeneration built on the opportunities created by theCommonwealth Games.

Labour is doing politics differently by involving communities in policydevelopment. In Edinburgh for example, “Moving EdinburghForward”, our manifesto for the local elections, was developedthrough consulting with local people. This has now been followed upby public consultation on the draft budget both this year and last yearand by the establishment of Edinburgh’s Transport Forum which isdesigned to give stakeholders a real say in transport priorities.

Labour groups are also thinking how they deliver services in ways thatmaximise community involvement, such as the co-operative councilsmovement.

But there are challenges. First and foremost a financial settlementwhich does not meet existing service cost pressures. Then there are thedemographic and social justice challenges highlighted by the ChristieCommission, and the need to address urgently the infrastructure andservice investment required to mitigate the impact of climate change.Those challenges are compounded by the fact that our civicleaderships have fewer staff who are doing more with less and

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responding to a pace of change stretching human and technologicalresources.

The SNP government have put local services in a financial straitjacket,and the combination of SNP centralisation and Tory spending cutshave put local government in financial difficulties not seen since theThatcher era. Meanwhile councils are rightly diverting scarce resourcesinto proactive support for people whose family budgets are beingturned upside down by new, punitive Tory policies.

The combination of an underfunded council tax freeze, rising demandfor services and Tory welfare reforms threatens the financial viability ofservices that we all take for granted.

There has already been a price paid for this perfect storm. Thousandsof council staff have lost their jobs, services are under severe pressureand the cost of the SNP’s council tax freeze is being paid by those onlowest incomes. The social impact will wipe out progress made intackling poverty and is reinforcing disadvantage in communities whichare already excluded from the mainstream. Women are particularlyaffected as nearly two thirds of public sector workers are female andthey are more likely to be front-line users of our squeezed services.

Local government is now more dependent than ever on the ScottishGovernment for its funding, with council tax now representing only11% of the money required to run local services.

What an irony – the government which spends every press releasetelling us we need to devolve more financial powers to the ScottishParliament has actually been the most centralising government inhistory. It has used the powers it has to put a stranglehold on localgovernment. Early promises of a new equal partnership betweenScottish Government and local authorities have been set aside as SNPministers exercise tighter and tighter central controls. We need tounderstand how we got here.

Repairing this assault on local democracy will not be fixed by a piece ofpaper promising local government general competence status.Councils have had the power – which Labour enacted – to promote

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community well-being for a decade, but the SNP have robbed them ofthe capacity to use that power.

Labour’s support for devolution throughout the 20th century wasnever about wresting power from the British state only to centralise itin our newly established Scottish Parliament. Labour politicians such asJP Mackintosh, John Smith and Gordon Brown didn’t envisage a modelwhich simply transplanted a cut down centralised British state beinginstalled in Edinburgh, nor was it part of the vision supported by theConstitutional Convention. Indeed in early debates in the ScottishParliament, the importance of a partnership relationship was a clearvision shared across the Parliament and local government.

The referendum on independence should therefore not just be adebate about what the Scottish Parliament does; it should be a debateabout what powers our local authorities need to meet the aspirationsof communities across Scotland, and how we ensure that localdecision making promotes new opportunities to regenerate andimprove our communities. Labour’s Devolution Commission hasproposed that we should go further and consider what decisions andpowers should be devolved to individual communities to enable themto make the most of the energies and resources of local peopleworking together to improve their lives.

Powers for a Purpose sets out the clear objective of reversing thecentralisation of the SNP years and calls for a reinvigoration of ourlocal democracy and empowerment of our communities.

Our Island Councils have responded to the constitutional debate byissuing their call for specific powers in Our Islands Our Future. Weneed to build on the strengths and opportunities across Scotland, notpretend that one size fits all when it comes to the range of challengesthat are shaped by our geography and community aspirations.Devolution must not and should not end at the Scottish Parliament.

We should be looking at what responsibilities we believe could bedevolved to local or community levels, how councils can be supportedto have the capacity to meet the needs and aspirations of local

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communities, and how we empower those communities to act - forexample in developing projects that make use of buildings and land.

Over the coming months Scottish Labour will be setting out our ideasin more detail. Here are my demands for tackling the big issues thatwe know have to be addressed.

1. We must make local government finance sustainable in the longrun and give local authorities a range of options so that they canrespond to local demands and circumstances. We need to fix theSNP’s underfunded Council Tax freeze. By the next localelections it will be 25 years since the last local revaluation and 9years since the council tax freeze. We need to be more creative.What about looking at Edinburgh City Council’s proposals for alocally set tourist tax? The SNP have rejected the proposal, butsimilar local levies are used in other European countries.

2. We must identify the fiscal levers that could be devolved fromthe Scottish or UK governments to our local authorities. Forexample what about the potential benefits of devolving theCrown Estate Commission’s powers, or are there other measurescurrently dealt with at the Scottish Parliament level which couldbe devolved?

3. We must increase the level of participation in local governmentelections and encourage a broader range of people to stand ascouncillors. When PR for local government was mooted it wassuggested that because every vote counted we’d see an increasein the number of people voting. Yet turn out for localgovernment elections continues to drop, and the most recentelections last year saw a reduced number of candidates.

4. We must encourage more interest from and engagement byyoung people in the decisions made which directly affect theirlives. With 16 and 17 year-olds being given the chance to vote innext year’s referendum surely this is a chance to reflect on theimpact of the Scottish Youth Parliament. What about a localfocus on civic education and linking young people’s

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organisations into local decisions? With the emphasis on thelegacy of London’s Olympics and Glasgow’s CommonwealthGames being discussed in terms of new sports investment, this isan opportunity to debate with young people what sort offacilities and support could open up opportunities for them.

5. Then there are challenges for young people who are alreadyorganised, for example, as young trade unionists or studentactivists. How many of them ever stand for, never mind vote in,council elections? Are there opportunities to engage such peopleand groups in the day-to-day decisions which affect them, suchas housing, community safety and transport?

6. And what about groups historically under-represented such aswomen and people from BME communities? Last year Labour’sproportion of women councillors increased across Scotland. Thatwasn’t an electoral accident but the result of encouragingcommunity activists and women with an interest in improvingtheir communities to stand. While we also increased thenumbers of council candidates we stood from BME communities,we need to do much more between elections to build links andencourage people to come forward. That process of engagingcommunities must also shape policy delivery. For BMEcommunities in particular there are huge challenges developingappropriate support for older people which is simply not presentin mainstream services for members of our diverse ethnicminority communities.

7. Councils must be encouraged and supported to enable localcommunities to determine service priorities in their own areas.Local area committees with budgets could be one way toempower communities to set their own mark on what’s needed.Other countries have much more locally driven communitydecision making processes. What can we learn from them andhow do we generate the resources to make this possible giventhe current and projected financial resources which are likely tobe available?

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8. Across Scotland there are community groups using the powerswhich Labour championed in the first term of the ScottishParliament and legislated for through the Land Reform Act toown and manage land and resources for the benefit of the widercommunity. A decade on from that ground-breaking act weshould be debating where we go next. We must extend thosepowers to urban communities and incentivise communities towork together to regenerate areas which have been pushedfurther into the vicious cycle of disinvestment in these tougheconomic times. We could be looking at transfer of land tocommunities for community growing projects such as allotmentsor community orchards, or the transfer of buildings which haveno economic use and are surplus to requirement. We should givecommunities the opportunity to develop social enterprises or co-ops which generate income locally. As our town centres struggleto deal with the pressures of changing consumer habits, whatabout giving local start-up businesses the chance to makesomething of locations which need vitality? And whatopportunities could be created by devolving Crown Estatepowers not just to the Scottish Parliament, but to localgovernment and or local communities?

9. This autumn the Scottish Parliament debates the ProcurementBill. We must maximise the opportunities for spending ourmoney for local services in ways which will stimulate localpurchasing and give local companies, voluntary sector providersor co-operatives the chance to provide locally-driven serviceswhich help regenerate and reinvest in communities rather thanseeing money disappearing from our local economies.

10. We must learn from the community renewables movementwhich has developed in the last decade and extend those lessonsto urban areas. There has been a raft of community projectsacross our rural communities but there’s heat and powerpotential still untapped in many places. Aberdeen City underLabour leadership established an arms length community heatand power company which has rolled out projects tackling fuel

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poverty and reducing CO2 emissions across the city. Glasgow hasjust established its own energy services company and Edinburghis promoting a co-operative model with its first communitycooperative, the Harlaw Hydro scheme, under way.

That’s only a starter for 10. And they involve many challenges. Oneperson’s postcode lottery is another’s local diversity. We need a debateabout where the balance should lie between the different levels ofgovernance which is open and transparent. Scotland is a countrywhere one size doesn’t fit all because of our geography, our localidentities and our different cultures.

The Christie Commission highlighted the need to invest in solutions tothe deep seated social inequalities and problems which scar too manyof our communities. We need to debate the implications of changingdemographics and develop new ways to support people throughoutlonger lives.

Our changing climate will see us needing to spend more anddifferently to ensure that our infrastructure is made more robust and ismodernised. Communication and manufacturing technologies willopen new opportunities most of us can’t even imagine. But we needto make sure that those social and economic opportunities are madereal across the country.

The key is that those decisions should be driven by a desire to makeScotland a more equal, fairer country. For us in Labour we need tolearn from our own time in government. I remember one of ourmantras at the time was “what matters is what works”. On one levelthat makes complete sense. It was an obvious statement not to letdogma get in the way of intelligent decisions. The recentdetermination of the Tory government to privatise the East Coast MainLine despite its success is testament to that. But we need more thanthat. Looking back I think we should have asked for more out of themoney we spent on public contracts. I’m absolutely not calling forpoliticians to be more managerial – but to make sure we’re better atfollowing through an implementation to check for example thattraining opportunities for young people do actually happen. That

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means being clear about our political values, it means being creativeand innovative as we implement policies to deliver economicregeneration and stronger communities.

In a paper for the Centre for Public Policy in 2003 I argued foroverarching policy objectives to ensure government policies worked inconcert not in opposition. So when we set the objective of reducingour carbon emissions we need to factor in social justice impact andmaximise economic opportunities too. Crucially we need to go back tothose policies and ask if they have delivered on our ambitions overtime.

When the Scottish Parliament was established, Labour’s ambition wasto ensure that decisions were taken closer to home, that thosedecisions were more transparent and that equalities and social justicedrove policies so that historic injustice and disadvantage in ourcommunities could be tackled. The first years of the ScottishParliament have focused on getting things right at the national level. Ifwe are to meet the challenges of the next decades, and stay true tothe principles which drove us to establish our Parliament, we nowneed to turn more attention towards local decision making andempowering our communities.

We need to set out a vision for local decision making that seesopportunities for local leadership across public and private institutions;that mobilises to build the infrastructure and human resilience to copewith and rise to the challenges we face; and that does it together insolidarity. That would be a positive legacy to follow on from the era ofSNP centralisation.

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Catriona Munro

Labour has long sought to be the party of positive engagement in theEuropean Union. The SNP – despite facing serious questions aboutwhether, and if so the terms on which, Scotland might even continueas a member were there to be a Yes vote in next year’s referendum –has tried to go one better than that by asserting that Scotland wouldhave greater influence in the European Union as an independent state.The Tories have promised to look at “repatriating” powers prior to areferendum yet their “balance of competences review” has concludedthat the current position is largely appropriate and that the UK standsto benefit from further single market measures in a range of sectors.The Lib Dems, notionally a pro European party, have no doubt beenseverely damaged by their association with the Tories over the lastthree years. As we approach a general election and Holyroodelections, where should Labour position itself on the EU and whatcould Scotland's role be in this?

Today, the reasons for the establishment of the EU are in history booksrather than in memories. The EU, scarcely covered by the media and,when it is, portrayed as an enormous bureaucracy remote from ourdaily lives, had a poor reputation even before the current economiccrisis. The tensions in the Euro zone that have been exposed have hadenormous human costs in an attempt to salvage the single currency.

Yet overall, weighing the pluses against the minuses, we are surelybetter off in the EU. Over the piece, the UK has benefited from EUmembership through growth, competitiveness and access to markets,not to mention the freedom to travel, work and study abroad. Openand competitive telecoms, energy and infrastructure markets deliver amore competitive economy that can hold its own on the world stage.Perhaps most importantly from a historical perspective not only has theEU delivered the longest peace these countries have known, but has

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integrated and bolstered the democracies of many of the formercommunist bloc countries in a remarkably short period of time.

The economic and social arguments in favour of the EU are perhapsmore powerful than ever before. With the rise of major competingeconomies such as China, there is all the more reason to tackle tradeissues in the WTO as an EU bloc. A single market in goods andservices across the EU is surely good for businesses and consumersboth because they can buy and sell throughout and because it ensureskeener competition with the best surviving. And a single marketsupported by social measures, ensuring equal pay, fair working hoursand health and safety at work is surely something which all on the leftwould support. On climate change and other environmentalmeasures, for instance, the EU as a whole can potentially achievemuch more than could its parts. It is a given that the future is a moreinternational one, one where issues need to be resolved by countriesworking together, where, if we did not have the EU, we would bedesperately trying to invent it. We need access to markets andinfluence on the international stage.

Of course, the EU is not without flaws. The Euro remains in crisis andrecovery is still a hope rather than a certainty, with austerity cripplingmany in the Euro zone. The common agricultural policy remains a vastcost to EU members, an historic hangover from times when acommand economy in food was justified; today the protection of theenvironment, health and fair trade with the developing world shouldbe the guiding principles in food policy. The anti-dumping rules,which impose duties on cheap goods imported principally from China,involve long, tortuous and opaque procedures and are perceived as atit for tat battle between the EU and China based on protectionismand political shenanigans rather than competitiveness. Migrationwithin the EU presents real economic challenges which to date havenot been faced up to. And despite the significant legislative powersthat the European Parliament does now have, few bother to go out tovote in its elections. Perhaps most importantly, the EU remains alumbering enigma to most people, its activities and workingunderstood by lobbyists and policy wonks alone.

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Some claim that as an independent country Scotland would sit at thetop table in the EU with real clout. On the whole, the evidencesuggests that small states suffer disadvantages not just by havingfewer votes in the Council but also in the lower shaping capacity in theagenda setting and decision making stages of EU policy making.Granted, some research suggests that EU legislation tends to be morein line with small states' positions than not, but it has been suggestedthat this is because they tend to line up with the most agreeableposition put forward by a large member state at the negotiation stage.Of course, there are strategies to seek to address this such as regionalalliances and alliances with large member states but the level ofinfluence these can deliver is at best uncertain. In practice significantEU measures are seldom adopted in the face of opposition from thelarge EU member states. Even leaving aside the problem that anindependent Scotland is unlikely to be automatically allowed to jointhe EU or if allowed that this may be on less good terms, going italone as a small state is surely a risk not worth taking.

Would it not then be far preferable for Scotland to have a louder voicewithin the UK to articulate its concerns and assert its position? At themoment, Scotland expresses itself through various channels.Representation by MEPs and through the Committee of the Regionsare long established means of influence. In addition, since theestablishment of the Scottish Parliament, a memorandum ofunderstanding provides for the Scottish Government to be keptinformed of relevant EU developments, to feed into the policy makingprocess in relation to matters touching on devolved areas and to play arole in Council meetings “ at which substantive discussion is expectedof matters likely to have a significant impact on their devolvedresponsibilities”. Other member states, by contrast, such as Austriaand Germany, oblige the federal level government to giveresponsibility for matters within the exclusive competence of a sub-state minister to that sub-state minister; and in Germany the Ländercan challenge the federal government for acting or taking decisionsmore appropriate to the Länder. Of course, there are real challengesinvolved in identifying which of the regions should send a

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representative and in identifying what position that representativeshould adopt when speaking on behalf of the member state as awhole. Particular difficulties arise in the UK because of theasymmetrical nature of our devolved settlement. Nonetheless, othercountries have met these challenges so it is worth looking at ourarrangements afresh to see whether they are fit for purpose.

Procedural tweaks which help Scotland’s position to be given theweight it deserves are all well and good; but more important still is tobecome a nation engaged with the EU, knowledgeable about what itis up to and therefore able to influence its workings and outcomes. Asthe Euro zone powers ahead towards greater integration, the UK’sinfluence on EU policy is inevitably reduced, at least in those areaswhere the UK is in the slow lane. For the UK, the decision to stay outof the Euro means taking a back seat as the Euro zone integrates itsfinancial systems. Should joining the Euro still be a long term aim?Perhaps, but saying so could be electoral suicide.

We need to reject the Tories' position on “repatriating” (for whichread “repealing”) social and employment law, and justice and homeaffairs, robustly and without equivocation. Let's not forget that asocial dimension was not always a given but that without it freemovement and fair competition could not be a reality.

Just as Labour believes that the UK together constitutes more than thesum of its parts, so too the EU together can achieve more than eachstate alone. There will of course always be areas of compellingnational interest where a position which diverges from those of our EUpartners must be put forward, but how much more persuasive is thatposition when this is the exception rather than norm. But there is astark difference between the Tories’ handbagging approach and onewhich builds alliances with other EU members so as to be heard as acredible voice of reason in the negotiation of EU budgets and policies.

We need to stop being defensive about the EU. We need to be clearabout what the EU can do for us, and what we can do for it. We needto state clearly and unequivocally that there is no question of the UKleaving the EU under a Labour government. Our movement is an

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internationalist one, and an EU which embraces cultural difference andcouples social cohesion with economic advancement is exactly whatwe should be all about. Furthermore a belief that the EU has animportant role to play in our legislative and democratic make-up doesnot conflict with a belief in devolving power to the lowest level wherethat is the appropriate level for its exercise.

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Margaret Curran MP

In the midst of the referendum debate, two unhelpful cleavages haveemerged that are damaging our national conversation. The first is theidea that the primary choice of political identity for people involved inScottish politics is between nationalism and unionism. The second isthe manufactured conflict between a fictional “London” and“Edinburgh”, between the UK and Scottish Parliaments, where oneinstitution is cast as the permanent enemy of Scotland, and the otheras our saviour.

At the expense of all other political divisions, this is the one that hasbeen cast as the central dividing line in Scottish politics. For those of uswho care deeply about Scotland and our country’s future, this shouldbe deeply worrying. And for those of us on the progressive side ofpolitics, it should concern us that the political discourse in Scotland isdominated by a division that, logically, can lead to us closing our eyesand ears to the real causes of and solutions to the social wrongs thatstill blight our society.

My argument is this: that the pursuit of independence and nationalismitself blinds the SNP to both the true causes of inequality and theirsolutions. And in the pursuit of their goal they are willing toaccommodate ideas that are no longer appropriate for a societystruggling out of recession after the greatest crisis of capitalism in ourlifetimes. In tackling the SNP, we have to not only clearly define ourown goals, but also be clear about what the SNP represents and notshirk in calling out nationalism as a concept in itself.

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The Nationalist Cul-de-Sac

In June of this year, Nicola Sturgeon made the accurate point thatthere are more wealthy people in the South East of England than therest of the UK. It’s a valid point, and one that has much to do withhigh house prices and the presence of one of the largest cityeconomies in the world in that part of Britain. It’s a point that EdMiliband had also made several times before, when trying to showhow the whole of the UK needed to be rebalanced away from thesouth east.

For the SNP, however, the crude point being made was that “rich”people in the South East of England were exploiting “poor” people inScotland. It was a point supported on the front page of a nationalnewspaper on the same weekend, which declared that London was“bleeding Scotland dry.” It was a crude portrayal of the balance ofpower and wealth across the UK.

It was also characteristic of the tactics of nationalist movements theworld over: establish the ‘other’, instil resentment and then wait forpeople to make the connection you’re trying to lead them to. It’s thesame type of politics that gave Michael Howard’s Conservatives the“are you thinking what we’re thinking?” election slogan of 2005.

And what this does to Scotland is to close down debate. If you believethat your Scottish identity defines everything right through to yourpolitical beliefs, and if you believe that being ‘Scottish’ is enough tosecure positive social and economic outcomes, you inevitably closeyour eyes and ears to the real problems affecting our nation. If youbelieve the roots of all our economic, social and political ills come froma force beyond our borders, we will never find the real answers to howwe build a better society.

So while the SNP frequently talk of inequalities between England andScotland, between London and Edinburgh, we hear little of the hardreality of inequality inside Scotland’s borders.

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Facing the Reality

Around the same time that the ONS published the data NicolaSturgeon pointed to in order to make her point about inequality, thewell-respected Fraser of Allander institute published the first overviewof economic inequality in Scotland’s regions between 1997 and 2010.1

The conclusions were stark. While the Scottish economy grew by24.2% in real terms over this period, performance across Scotland’sregions varied significantly.

Five of Scotland’s sub-regions performed more than 10% worse thanScotland as a whole. The worst performing group – Inverclyde, EastRenfrewshire and Renfrewshire was nearly 23% below the Scottishaverage over that period (representing only 2% growth), while thebest was more than 23% higher. In the period between 2002 and2010, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen grew and accounted for halfof all Scottish output.

In the UK as a whole, similar results from economic surveys of thisperiod are keeping politicians and economists awake at night as theytry to work out how they solve this public policy challenge and build abalanced economy. But in the world of Scottish politics and publicpolicy – where the key challenge set by the Nationalists is always tocompare ourselves with England – these important nuances arecompletely lost.

Narrow Nationalism vs One Nation Labour

But should this surprise us? Ask yourself when you last heard a seniorSNP politician really address inequality inside Scotland, and you’ll beleft wanting. Nationalism is a narrow creed and as Ian McWhirter haspointed out, the SNP can try to call it something else, or dress theirpolitics up differently, but there is no getting away from the fact thatthey are still Nationalists and they believe that being Scottish is enoughin itself to guarantee a better future. Compare Alex Salmond’sNationalist vision to Ed Miliband’s vision for a One Nation Britain and

1 G J Allan, The Spatial Pattern of Growth and Economic Equality in Scotland, 1997 2010 , Fraser of Allander Economic Commentary, March 2013

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the differences between Labour’s values and those of the SNP arestark.

At the root of One Nation is the idea that all of us, wherever we are inthe UK, have a contribution to make to rebuild our economy, oursociety and our politics. It’s a vision that asks everyone to play theirpart and doesn’t see the borders between the UK’s nations as anobstacle to that.

And when you think about how our world is changing – with people,goods and ideas moving across borders more now than ever before –it makes sense. This is an approach that’s solidly grounded in thereality of our world. Each day $4 trillion moves across internationalborders.2 The number of people not living in the country in which theywere born increased by close to 40% over the past twenty years.3 Andin 2012, 6 billion people – 87% of the world’s population – carried amobile phone in their pocket.4 This isn’t a world crying out for moreborders – it’s a world looking to work together, not break apart.

In our approach to the economy, One Nation Labour is also groundedin the experiences of people the length and breadth of the UK whocan see from their own lives and their own communities that theeconomy is not working in the way it should be. As Ed Miliband said inFebruary, the answer is not to believe in the ideal that wealth “tricklesdown” and that “a more unequal economy where a few people takethe proceeds can be a successful economy”, but to grow an economymade by the many, not just the few at the top.

It’s an idea that most Scots would agree with, but not one that AlexSalmond and the SNP are keen to adopt. Instead, cutting tax for thebiggest companies is still their preferred route to growing Scotland’seconomy.

2 Bank for International Settlements: Statistical Report (2011), http://www.bis.org/publ/rpfxf10t.htm

3 UN estimates

4 World Bank Development Indicators Database / International Telecommunications Union Indicators Database

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Finally, devolution is an integral part of Labour’s One Nation approach.Having everyone play their part means pushing power down to thelevel that is most appropriate – it’s only in that way that ourcommunities, towns and cities will be able to make change happenaround them. Unlike the SNP, our discussion is about power and notpowers; about how people can take control of their lives and theircommunities, not which levers politicians at Westminster or Holyroodwill be able to pull.

One Nation Labour’s approach to devolution is about building on thestrong foundation we have inherited from the original devolutionsettlement, looking forward to the new powers in 2016 and askingwhat more we need to do. It’s a discussion that starts with ends, notmeans and addresses the fundamental question of how we makeScotland’s people more prosperous. What is clear, however, is that aOne Nation approach which puts collaboration and contribution at itscore will see both our governments at Westminster and Holyroodworking hand in hand, bringing to bear the full power of eachinstitution in the best interests of people in Scotland.

Over the next year, plenty of ink will be spilled and airtime exhaustedon the intricacies of our referendum. As progressives, interested andengaged in debates about how we improve Scotland and the rest ofthe world, we need to keep at the front of our minds that the battlewe fight is not just about the values and ideas in the independencedebate, but at the heart of our entire political cause.

This isn’t just a debate between the SNP and Labour, between thosewho would see us break apart and those of us who want the UK toremain intact. It is an argument at a crucial time in our history – whenthe world is changing around us – about whether the values we thinkwill see us through are progressive or nationalist. The stakes couldn’tbe any higher.

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Iain Gray MSP

In a Scotland whose politics are dominated by the independencequestion, sloppy clichés abound, and most of them are not true. Onthe pro-independence side it is a given that those who do not sharetheir view have, ipso facto, no vision for Scotland or ambition for whatScotland can be. In fact the Labour movement has been drivenprecisely by the belief that we can make our society better, and thedetermination that we will do so, from its very inception. That is astrue today as it ever was.

On our side of the independence debate, we accuse our opponents ofmaking the clearly absurd argument that removing Scotland from theUnited kingdom will allow us not only to resolve all the difficult social,political and economic questions of our time at a stroke, but to be theonly country in the developed world to avoid their challengealtogether. If we are honest though, there are those in the “Yes”camp, from the Scottish Green party to the Jimmy Reid Foundation,who have taken the opportunity of the constitutional debate to askquestions about the kind of Scotland they would like to see.

How much more important then, that Scottish Labour and the widermovement of the Left demonstrate our vision and ambition for ourcountry by thrashing out our ideas for how that country should betransformed. How urgent that the Fabians, whose role has alwaysbeen to challenge and drive forward the thinking of the movementshould play their part. How timely, then, this pamphlet and thecontributions it contains.

Trevor Davies et al describe graphically the “morbid symptoms” of ourtime, a legacy of decades of politics and economics which hasincreased division, fuelled alienation and damaged the relationshipswhich hold society together. They conclude with a challenge to the

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Scottish parliament to reach for its original ambition to turn thisaround.

This is a common theme of these essays, that the Scottish parliamenthas lost its own sense of direction. No one makes that case betterthan Drew Smith who does not pull his punches in either allocatingblame, or suggesting how that institution, and those us privilegedenough to sit in it, can get ourselves back on track.

Richard Kerley makes the point that the Scottish parliament wascreated as a “Parliament for public services” and that this is a mind-setwe need to change. Above all we need to be much more rigorousabout asking what the real, rather than imagined effects are of thedecisions that parliament takes, a difficult debate Johann Lamont hasalready started. Catriona Munro reminds us that the devolvedparliament was meant to provide Scotland with a new and moreproductive relationship with the European union, another aspiration ofits early days which we would do well to revisit.

Kezia Dugdale goes to the heart of the economic question whichdefines our future, the disconnection between economic growth andthe opportunity it provides to the next generation to make a full andfulfilling life for themselves and their families. She argues that it is notenough to raise levels of skills in an economy increasingly built onexploitative models of “employment”. We need to raise levels ofconfidence, self belief and ambition, and support that with the meansto turn it into new forms of enterprise.

Kezia reflects another common thread in these essays. We need tolook for solutions in the strengths and potentials we already have, andfind ways to support them. Oxfam Scotland have done exactly that inthe development of their widely praised Humankind Index, developinga powerful decision making tool through direct consultation withthose at the “sharp end” of economic decisions. Katherine Trebeckand Francis Stuart’s essay describes this important initiative, and havingparticipated recently in a public application of the process I can testifyto its power.

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Sarah Boyack’s essay also takes us to the “sharp end”, where localauthorities struggle with shrinking resources to support theircommunities without the luxury of distance parliamentarians enjoy.This is a powerfully positive contribution because it provides examplesof how many local councils have fashioned highly imaginative andsuccessful responses to their communities’ needs in the most difficultof circumstances. Sarah’s argument that we should therefore supportlocal authorities to do more rather than constantly reduce their powersand resources is a compelling one. It is supported by MargaretCurran’s case, with stark statistical evidence to back it up, that the SNPgovernment’s focus on Scotland and our relationship to the othernations of the UK has blinded them to the corrosive inequalitiesbetween the different parts of Scotland.

These essays add up to a telling account of the urgent need totransform society, but also provide clear pointers as to the path weshould be advocating. They make the case that separation is not onlya distraction from this challenge of our generation, but an impedimentto turning division and alienation around. They show that ourdevolved parliament can play a positive role in this transformation, butto do so must rediscover its own ambitions and aspirations andtransform itself in order to change Scotland for the better.

Finally, every one of these essays is clear that we can find the strengthfrom within ourselves and our movement to escape this Gramscian“interregnum” to the new and better beyond.

Anas Sarwar eloquently sums this up in his essay on our need torediscover and apply our own core values of equality, community,fairness, solidarity and social justice and use these as our guidingprinciples.

This is the route out of what Margaret Curran calls the “nationalist cul-de-sac” for Scottish Labour, and, more to the point, for Scotland.

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We have an exciting programme of work planned for the coming year,including:

The 19|09 seminar seriesA series of evening seminars with expert speakers and encouraging open debate, looking beyond the referendum, at three key fundamentals for Scots: wellbeing • community • opportunity

Scottish Fabians spring conferenceIncluding contributions from a range of Labour affiliated organisations and socialist societies.

Scottish Fabians Fringe at Scottish Labour conferenceAlways a thought-provoking and lively debate.

Local groups, student groups and lawyers networkWork will continue to support and develop our network of groups across Scotland.

Another essay compilation and more publicationsContinuing our facilitation of policy debate within the Labour movement in Scotland.

Join Scottish Fabians today

Every member of the Fabian Society resident in Scotland isautomatically a member of Scottish Fabians. To join the FabianSociety (standard rate �3 per month / unwaged �1.50 per month)please visit www.fabians.org.uk/members/join.

SARAH BOYACK MSP MARGARET CURRAN MP CATRIONA …€¦ · Daniel Johnson is Convener of the Scottish Fabians, co-owns an established Edinburgh business and is a community campaigner

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