Ambitions For Scotland PDF

SARAH BOYACK MSP
MARGARET CURRAN MP
TREVOR DAVIES
KEZIA DUGDALE MSP
CAROL FINLAY
MIKE FREUNDENBERG
DUNCAN HOTHERSALL
DANIEL JOHNSON
FOREWORD BY
JOHANN LAMONT MSP
RICHARD KERLEY
CATRIONA MUNRO
MAUREEN PARNELL
ANAS SARWAR MP
DREW SMITH MSP
FRANCIS STUART
KATHERINE TREBECK
DIARMID WEIR
AFTERWORD BY
IAIN GRAY MSP
SCOIISH FABANS
Scottish Fabians is part of The Fabian Society, Britains oldest political
think tank. Since 1884 the Society has played a central role in
developing political ideas and public policy on the left. Through a wide
range of publications and events the society influences political and
public thinking, but also provides a space for broad and open-minded
debate.
The Society is alone among think tanks in being a democratically-
constituted membership organisation, with almost 7,000 members. It
was one of the original founders of the Labour Party and is
constitutionally affiliated to the party. It is however editorially,
organisationally and financially independent and works with a wide
range 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 of
vision, values and policy. It held its inaugural AGM in November 2012
which elected its first Executive Committee to take forward an exciting
programme of work.
Join Scottish Fabians today
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CONIENIS
Contributors 5
Foreword 7
Johann Lamont MSP
Common Cause 8
Trevor Davies, Carol Finlay, Mike Freundenberg,
Maureen Parnell, Diarmid Weir
Enterprise as an act of public service 14
Kezia Dugdale MSP
From trickle-down growth to collective prosperity 20
Katherine Trebeck, Francis Stuart (Oxfam Scotland)
Changing Scotland requires changing Holyrood 27
Drew Smith MSP
Delivering social justice through economic change 33
Anas Sarwar MP
Devolution as an economic ambition 33
Daniel Johnson, Duncan Hothersall
Public services could we do better? 44
Richard Kerley
Double devolution: devo mark two 52
Sarah Boyack MSP
Labour, Europe and Scotland 61
Catriona Munro
A choice between progress and division 66
Margaret Curran MP
Afterword 71
Iain Gray MSP
Scottish Fabians
w www.scottishfabians.org.uk
t @scottishfabians
Publications & editorial: Duncan Hothersall
e duncan@scottishfabians.org.uk
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, Convener
April Cumming
Catriona Munro
Tom York
Ann McKechin MP
Duncan Hothersall
CONIRBUIORS
Sarah 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 Committee
of 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
Maureen 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 Scotlands
domestic poverty programme and is currently taking forward
Oxfams 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.
6 Scottish Fabians
FOREWORD
Johann Lamont MSP
The debate about Scotland's future is dominating our politics at the
moment as we build towards a referendum on independence. My
frustration is that that debate is too narrow, too focused on whether
we want to remain part of the United Kingdom or not.
I believe the debate about Scotland's future could, and should, be so
much richer.
The nationalists have a single idea. They get to put it to the test next
year. But the radical voices of the left have many ideas. These ideas
have changed people's lives for the better, and I am confident they will
again. Those are the ideas I am interested in hearing.
I want Scotland's future to be a battle of these ideas, competing
visions about how we transform an education system that creates
opportunity for all; build a sustainable health service which delivers the
kind of care we would want for our sick, our vulnerable and our
elderly; deliver a justice system that ensures our streets are safe; and
construct a new economy that allows all of us to share in future
prosperity.
The Fabian Society has been always been a melting pot for radical
ideas and has helped shaped Labour's past. In taking forward this
project, I am sure Scottish Fabians will be central to delivering the
radical change we aspire to for Scotland.
Scottish Fabians 7
COMMON CAUSE
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, in
anger and dismay, that the place at which we stand is where the gap
between rich and poor is the greatest for a hundred years, where
austerity threatens to rend our social fabric for generations, and where
divisions between classes, races, regions and nations are being
widened, accidentally and deliberately.
We have a choice. We can continue, through timidity, or lack of
imagination, or preoccupation with the day-to-day, along the crowded
path which may still deny to every citizen the chance of a good life of
their own choosing. Or we can take the adventurous path which
delves into our core values and, from them, begins to configure a
different Scotland.
The present is stark. In families everywhere, parents, if they can find
work, are working harder than ever before and yet are falling behind
in a struggle to provide a decent life for themselves and their children.
Their living standards, flat from 2000 but propped up by give-away
credit, slumped from 2008
1
and will do so for the foreseeable future.
Those same parents, giving their working lives to a local factory, now
find the owners are an anonymous off-shore fund doing deals that for
efficiency require the factory to shut. Without work they fall back
unwillingly onto state support. But the state, its revenue destroyed by
tax scams, is slashing its support. The determined single parent of two
schoolgirls studying at home for a specialist science degree so she can
better provide for her growing girls, reading at night, writing essays at
the kitchen table in school hours, paying her own tuition fees and
1 The Resolution Foundation 2013
8 Scottish Fabians
COMMON CAUSE
living on the margin, now faces losing her home and the end of her
ambitions, because the girls have the luxury of a bedroom each and
the government wants therefore to take 40.00 from her support
every month.
In our low wage, low skill, low productivity, de-unionised economy,
the young face a future less prosperous, less certain and more
dangerous than their parents. Despite their efforts to keep up, more
people live in poor health, more children grow up in poverty. Many eat
anonymous adulterated food. Nearly a quarter are in permanent debt.
And most of us fail to properly acknowledge that we all live beyond
what the planet can provide. Yet, still, we are nagged by a feeling that
what we do buy does little to support its producers, but instead puts
yet another pound into the collecting boxes of the corporate rich. In a
time of debt and disruption, 6,000 hand bags and 245,000 cars are
best-selling products.
This is not the politics of envy, as apologists for the old order claim. If
we confront those disconnections, it can become instead the politics
of justice. Because at last the economists, the political theorists, the
business experts, their cheerleaders in our far-from-free press, who
have persuaded us all over forty years of the truth of feudal dogmas
of trickle-down economics and the unfettered free market, have been
found out. The ground they believed to be firm is daily shifting under
their feet, and ours, to a point of crisis.
Yet we fumble for new foundations. At the time of the last Great
Depression prior to war, Antonio Gramsci wrote: The crisis consists
precisely 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 pulling
apart. The bad economics which make the many pay for the rampages
of the few, the dreamt-of borders and separations of either the UKIP
or SNP sort, the blame placed on the young, poor and sick for their
youth, poverty or sickness, the demonisation of the foreigner, whether
2 Selections from the Prison Notebooks
Scottish Fabians 9
refugee or worker these are divisions of a depth and strength weve
not 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 sense
of right and wrong. Our values con front and resist the fools gold
which tells us there is no such thing as society, that the workplace
must be ruled by profit alone, that citizens are best treated as
consumers, that anyone unlike us is likely to be dangerous and that
each community should be bounded according to its wealth.
So let us, instead, speak of pulling together, of the relationships we
have with each other and of the values we find in them. The doctor in
her surgery who, knowing that passive patients dont get well as fast,
instead of simply giving out another pill, chooses instead to help the
patient acquire the tools to own his own health, taking responsibility
for his own healthy living, while she offers medical expertise when
needed. The company directors who sustain their worldwide company
over decades of boom and bust by knowing that their employees work
better when they share in the company, when they are trusted for
their knowledge and loyalty, when they have power to decide
themselves the best way to do their work. The neighbourhood which
turns out in good numbers and of all ages to clean, repair and
maintain a canal bank as a wider public resource and a thin green belt
for plants and animals.
Those values of solidarity, of responsibility, of common cause are the
foundations on which we have built and must build again. So we look
to a Scotland where our conditions of life are shaped by each of us
owning our own work, health, culture and learning; sharing our
common well-being, risks and security; and belonging fully to a
responsive democracy.
The idea of ownership has been colonised by the right to mean the
simply 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
10 Scottish Fabians
COMMON CAUSE
supremacy of the rights of business owners or land owners over those
of 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 to
determine their own lives. It is about pursuing and owning our own
life, liberty and happiness; about resisting those outside forces and
vested interests, both economic and political, along with the social
stresses of inequality
4
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. Significant
change is needed: corporate governance and work practices to allow
everyone to take responsibility for the way in which they work and
contribute to the creation of wealth; the income and knowledge and
confidence to take charge of our own health and well-being; the skills
and leadership to reinvigorate the places we live and work in; the time
and 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 its
own sake and what it can bring.
Such change will not come from government doing stuff to others. It
will come from the state acting as a convener of change, gathering
and nurturing the relationships, and providing the powers, to
individuals 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 market
individualism that portrays poverty as a result of laziness and welfare
as akin to free-loading. Rather they derive from equality and
commonality. They grow from strengthening our shared well-being
and our shared security and managing our shared risks. By sharing the
risks of unforeseen illness we lessen its impact on each and on all. By
sharing the risks to our security, from external threat, from crime, from
unemployment or bereavement, we reduce its cost and increase its
4 The Spirit Level Wilkinson and Pickett 2009
Scottish Fabians 11
effectiveness for each of us. By sharing our well-being we ensure it is
available to all.
But that essential sense of sharing has weakened under the pressures
of individualism and nationalism. Our shared relationships, whether at
local, Scottish, UK, European or global levels, need re-articulation. They
also need strengthening. It will be a far-reaching and challenging task.
The relationships of shared well-being, shared risk and shared security
need gathering and nurturing, re-examining, re-enlivening, reinforcing
and re-resourcing if they are to become meaningful again.
We pride ourselves on our democracy. Yet few on its receiving end
would claim it is responsive; much less that they have a tangible
relationship with it and with each other through it. Most would say it
is dominated by vested interests and powerful voices. The urgent
question for us is how to bring an equality of voice into our institutions
and processes, enabling decisions to be reached through reciprocal
understandings rather than through the exercise of power or of
expert status.
At the heart of our values we now discover the importance of
relationships, of governing through the creation and support of
productive 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 foundation
stone of governance as relationships is open-ended, complex,
uncertain, hard to summarise in official reports, but more enduring
and more egalitarian. More important than what we try to do is how
we and others do it, more about process than objective, more
about means than ends, about embedding our values of owning,
sharing and belonging, of solidarity and common cause into the
processes that shape our relationships. For the ends are about
providing for every citizen the chance of a good life of their own
choosing, not of ours.
But notice the word every. Theres the challenge.
5 see IPPR The Relational State 2013
12 Scottish Fabians
COMMON CAUSE
This is not just a task for government, though government is part of it
and we admire the experiments under way in Edinburgh towards a
co-operative council. More than that, it is a task for common actions
that step outside or devolve beyond government and yet contribute to
our shared well-being. The energy project in Dundee which brings
consumers together to use the power of their combined purchases to
lower their energy bills. The Fife Diet campaign to restore integrity and
localism to Fifes food supply.
Devolution for us is not an end in itself. It is certainly not a stepping
stone on the path to separate nationhood. Nor is it simply breaking off
a bit or a bit more or a bit less of Westminster and Whitehall and
relocating to Edinburgh. We see devolution as a process, a means. A
means of placing power where it properly belongs, whether that is
European, UK, Scottish, local or individual; a process which constantly
seeks to take social, economic and political power downwards until it
settles at its most effective level. So we uphold the values of
devolution, which brought significant parliamentary powers to our
nation, and seek to extend those values beyond the Scottish
parliament and government, exploring new forms of common action
and government that place responsibilities and powers in the hands of
the many, not the few.
And, therefore, we seek a Scottish Parliament which reaches up to
grasp fully its ambition as a legislature, setting standards and
enhancing our rights and freedoms. We also want it to shed its daily
ministerial authority over most government services and to disperse
them to local levels where the paths of information and control are
shorter and where productive alliances between users and suppliers
can govern their provision. We want it to encourage and support
forms 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
ENIERPRSE AS AN ACI OF PUBLC
SERVCE
Kezia Dugdale MSP
Ask me anything. Anything you like at all. Dont worry
about whether its something to do with the Council, or the
Westminster Government Whatever it is Ill do my best to
answer and if I dont know the answer, Ill find out for you
and get back in touch.
It was hard work breaking the ice with this group of despondent
young people at the youth centre in Central Edinburgh. Aged between
16 and 21, they all had varied experiences of the education system and
different outlooks on life.
One soul ventured: When will there be jobs? and somehow spoke
for them all.
Since the crash, unemployment has spiralled and much of the
discourse has focused around the monthly rises and dips in the
unemployment numbers. When the commentators got bored of that,
or struggled to find their own headline in the numbers, they began to
explore the growing phenomenon of underemployment. Latest figures
suggest that 10.6% of the population in Scotland are underemployed
and by that we mean they are either too qualified for the jobs they
are in, or desperately looking for more hours. Its an issue that
predominantly affects women and has a dramatic impact on in-work
poverty. It is a problem compounded by welfare cuts and rising living
costs.
Now the media are rightly obsessed with the notion of zero hour
contracts. Companies recruit staff on contracts of employment that
dont guarantee any actual work. In consequence, people of all ages
14 Scottish Fabians
ENTERPRISE AS AN ACT OF PUBLIC SERVICE
disappear from the unemployment statistics without gaining the
benefit of secure paid employment. Newspapers carry stories of
employees arriving at huge warehouses in the early hours of the
morning only to be told they have to wait in the canteen until theres
work to be done clocking on only when the conveyor belt starts
moving.
In our desperate attempt to make the statistics better we've confused
this type of exploitation as employment. In fact our governments have
encouraged it.
The story of unemployment, underemployment and poor terms and
conditions paints a very clear picture for me of a job market that it is
broken. The response from governments of all hues is to invest more in
attracting big multinational companies to set up in areas of high
unemployment. Huge public sums subsidise the building of
warehouses and factories housing poor quality jobs and feed the tax
avoiding habits of the multinationals running them.
It doesnt have to be like this, and Labour politicians have long argued
the case for a good, responsible capitalism. A number of Scottish MSPs
and MPs also make a compelling case for using the power of public
procurement to drive up employment standards which I fully support
tying public cash to a limited list of the decent thing to do. Pay your
tax and a living wage, abandon zero hour contracts and commit to
hiring young people and the public cash will be yours.
But must we always barter with the big guys? Or can we imagine a
different economy, built on home grown businesses that pride
themselves on being decent employers, rooted in the communities that
they employ as well as buy and sell from.
To drive such a dramatic shift in how our economy develops requires a
change of culture, and I would argue that our working culture is
perhaps our biggest obstacle as a nation.
Our shared history and identity provides substantial evidence of the
pride 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 any
substantial money of your own is avarice. That such an aspiration is for
the already well heeled and those of a right wing persuasion.
Perhaps thats because for too long weve witnessed governments
incentivise business growth with combinations of tax cuts, golden
handshakes 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 of
public service? A place where wealth is created by the toil of those in
secure, well paid work. A place where wealth is shared by those who
built it. A place where running a successful business is not something
you do for yourself, but for your community?
This has to start with the next generation, people young enough to
strain against the prevailing culture in order to drive its development.
What they need is a combination of practical skills and the confidence
to jump.
The statistics show there are reasons to be optimistic about the future
of entrepreneurship within young people. In 2012 the Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) for Scotland reported that plans for
new-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 realise
that just 0.5% of those who graduated in 2011/2012 started out
employing themselves.
So how do we change this?
The Practicalities
As we all know, it begins in education. Our colleges and universities
are centres of academic excellence. Our identity places a high value on
education as the great equalizer. A good education always remains a
pathway out of poverty.
Yet a good education in this global market hasnt always equalled
work, as the unemployment statistics demonstrate. This leads some to
16 Scottish Fabians
a debate about work-readiness. Do our institutions equip our young
people with the skills for the workplace? We obsess about the degree
to which industry should design education and all the time we seek to
perfect a supply chain for someone elses business.
Should schools, colleges and universities devote more time to the
practicalities of setting up your own business? What are rates and how
do you pay them? How do you keep yourself on the right side of the
HMRC? How do you digitize, market, pitch? Turnover vs profit? Recruit
to grow? Balance risk?
These are just the fundamentals, which are no doubt found in every
business course. But if we can embed them into all courses and not
just as a modular element, we can begin to really shift attitudes to
entrepreneurship. It simply cant be just "todays the day well learn
how to set up a business." It has to be inherent in the course design
and structure, and demonstrated consistently that an entrepreneurial
career 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 it
is here that the future lies, and they are committed to that journey
knowing they are many obstacles along the way.
It would be wrong, however, to assume these skills can simply be
taught. Its not about textbook application leading to success. It is
knowledge applied with attitude. An attitude of confidence, self-belief
and ambition.
The GEM study has called on universities to work to nurture the
entrepreneurial spark that is developing in graduates by enhancing
their provision of enterprise activities for their alumni. Suggestions
include coaching facilities for alumni; opportunities to meet high
quality potential investors, customers or suppliers; and honours for
those who try to create international businesses.
Scottish Fabians 17
The Confidence
Again we lack any substantial quantitative data to evidence the trends
in young business start-ups coming out of the education system. In its
absence, we have to presume that those limited instances - those
0.5% who did set up a business - come from families with SME
experience or a degree of private wealth. It's just what we know to be
true.
To liberate the possibility of the many, rather than the few, embarking
on business, we have to de-risk the process. The practicalities are the
first part but the second is purely financial. We need to provide the
finance which instils a sense of responsibility but without the fear of
debt.
Perhaps that could be done in the form of college or university based
investment banks. But this needs to be more than a bank; it is an
incubator thats a helping hand, a holding hand. The institution could
bring 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. They
could deliver payroll functions, tax advice, even IT infrastructure. All of
these tend to exist already within an institution's structures.
They could also provide encouragement to collaborate, to bring
together the web designer and the fitness instructor, and think what
might be.
They could provide loans on reasonable rates where the profit is
recycled to liberate further lending, much like a credit union. The
institution becomes a shareholder in the truest sense carrying the risk
in 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 fourth
quartile of Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rates up to
the second quartile. And yet we are still falling behind the rest of the
UK whose TEA rate sits at 9.8% to our 6.9%. This growth came from
18 Scottish Fabians
graduates, and whilst it is small at the moment, there is so much more
we can do to nurture it and really push Scotland into becoming that
innovation nation again.
Much of this progress has come through necessity rather than by
design. Now is the time to provide the architecture under which all
Scots, regardless of background or private wealth, are supported to
start out with a start up. It will be a significant act of public service to
make 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 James
Maxton MP. Perhaps we must leave our traditional view of public
service behind and embrace a more entrepreneurial Scotland, one that
benefits the many not the few.
This article was inspired by the writings of Carol Craig.
Scottish Fabians 19
FROM IRCKLE DOWN GROWIH IO
COLLECIVE PROSPERI
Katherine Trebeck, Francis Stuart (Oxfam Scotland)
By building a more dynamic and faster growing economy we
will increase prosperity, be better placed to tackle Scotlands
health and social challenges, and establish a fairer and more
equal society.
Scottish Government, 2011
This presumption is false. It ignores the failure of decades of economic
growth to change the lives of too many Scots who still face premature
mortality, economic inactivity, mental and physical ill-health, and poor
educational attainment. In some parts of Scotland more than one in
five adults are being prescribed drugs for anxiety and depression. In
these communities the communities where Oxfam works the
economic and social policies pursued in recent years have largely been
ineffective in reducing deprivation, while unquestioningly prioritising
economic growth has produced social and environmental damage.
Glasgow, where most of Oxfams work in Scotland is undertaken,
demonstrates how the imposition of a narrow model of economic
development impacts upon communities and individuals. It illustrates
how pursuit of money - a very partial type of financial asset
undermines social and human assets: our friends, our family
relationships and our health. This is most manifestly evident in
Glasgows growing health inequalities.
Up until 1981 the gradient of poor health in Glasgow mirrored that of
similarly-sized UK and European regions. Since then, however, health
inequalities have deepened for reasons beyond material deprivation.
Glasgows level and variation of income deprivation is the same as in
Liverpool and Manchester. Yet Glasgows poor health manifests itself
20 Scottish Fabians
FROM TRICKLE DOWN GROWTH TO COLLECTIVE PROSPERITY
in premature male mortality with a rate 30% higher than in these
comparable cities; suicide is 70% higher; there are 32% more violent
deaths; and 225% more alcohol-related deaths. These excesses only
emerged in the last two or three decades a time when the Scottish
economy grew by almost 2% each year and when spending on social
problems and social welfare doubled.
Asking why this is the case, rather than blaming individuals involved,
reveals the uncomfortable path Glasgow pursued over the last few
decades. The mode of economic development (premised on a trickle
down from wealth creation) pursued from the 1980s onwards seemed
to intensify anxiety over image and status, compelling people into
materialistic pursuits that damaged wellbeing and led to harmful
behaviours (such as alcohol and drug misuse). Whereas
deindustrialisation has been somewhat managed and mitigated in
other old industrial areas, the West of Scotland lost the greatest
number of jobs as a proportion of its total employment. And while
regeneration models in comparable cities also incorporated lifestyle
and consumption, Glasgows economic development appears to be
particularly service-based and consumerist. Once one of the worlds
leading industrial cities, Glasgow is now the UKs largest shopping
destination outside of London.
Glasgow shows how the transition to a narrow model of economic
growth and reliance on trickle down fails to reduce inequalities or to
revive communities rendered redundant by the prioritisation of finance
over people and of pounds over participation. The experience of
Oxfams partners in Glasgow is that development of shops, business
parks and infrastructure under the ambit of regeneration has not
equated to a reduction in local unemployment jobs created are often
taken by people from outside the area and displace jobs in other local
businesses. Physical improvements have focused on business
development and consumption-based activities but, despite decades of
considerable investment, these have not significantly reversed the
comparative fortunes of disadvantaged communities.
Scottish Fabians 21
Of course Glasgow is but a case study for the wider economic focus of
Scotland 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 or
individual security.
Local economic development premised on retail and services is
sustainable (economically, environmentally and socially).
Money spent on bricks and mortar, rather than on enhancing
communities themselves, will improve the socio-economic
circumstances of vulnerable neighbourhoods.
Any jobs are better than none, regardless of quality; work in and
of itself explicitly makes a good society; and paid work makes
the most valuable contribution to society.
How and what wealth is created and distributed has been ignored in
the drive to simply increase it. When the economy grinds to a halt, the
communities Oxfam works with are left high and dry by forces beyond
their control.
The debate about public service reform - through the work of the
Christie Commission - has rightly come round to the idea that building
individual and community control is crucial to good public services and
positive outcomes for people. Yet when it comes to the economy, the
only consideration seems to be how we promote economic growth
and inward investment. The wider purpose of economic activity, and
the level of community and individual control in dictating that
direction, 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 than
twice the rate for the poorest 10%.
22 Scottish Fabians
Scotlands richest households are now 273 times wealthier than
Scotlands poorest households.
40% of Scots in poverty are now in work.
Increasing labour-market flexibility has foisted increased risks
onto individuals to the detriment of family and community life.
Many community assets such as parks and green space have
been lost or devalued.
Increased materialism and consumerism has resulted in debt and
environmental damage whilst singularly failing to increase true
satisfaction.
Only 22% of Scots feel they can influence local decisions.
Poor people are stigmatised and scapegoated through social and
political discourse, particularly from the UK Government and
sections of the media, which labels people as scroungers,
cheats and undeserving.
Reflecting on these injustices, it is perhaps unsurprising that people
experiencing poverty are more likely to die early and spend more of
their shorter lives unwell.
Measuring the New prosperity
Most of us would define genuine wealth in terms of the
conditions of our relationshipsthe social cohesion of our
neighbourhoods and the quality of our childrens play. We
wouldnt tend to measure wealth in terms of our military
spending, war, the development of prisons, the cutting down
of ancient forests, or increases in the [stock market]
Mark Anielski, 2003
So how do we move towards a society and an economy where we
dont simply seek to increase economic growth without any concern
for who benefits and instead measure and share genuine wealth?
Scottish Fabians 23
In order to achieve this sustainable and socially-just Scotland, there
needs to be a re-framing of politics so that we nurture what matters to
the people of Scotland. We must develop a better way of measuring
our collective prosperity, beyond just narrow economic growth, in
order to re-conceptualise what constitutes the success of our
economy and the success of communities and individuals.
None of this is to say that economic growth is or isnt important. To be
honest an academic debate about economic growth is of little interest.
The key debate or at least the key starting point for any debate is to
ask what should be the primary purpose of government and the
economy? In Oxfams view the answer is not to promote economic
growth. Given the increasing evidence that poverty is both a key
societal cost and a driver of government spending, combined with the
fact that more equal societies do better, reducing poverty and
inequality would be a better focus. That is why Oxfam believes we
need a Poverty Commissioner to put poverty reduction at the heart of
government, to ensure spending decisions are poverty proofed, and to
support communities to challenge government policies and private
sector actions that do not contribute to socio-economic equality.
We also need better measures of success. In fairness to the Scottish
Government, the National Performance Framework is a reasonable
starting point setting out the governments overarching purpose and
encompassing a range of high-level targets, strategic objectives,
national outcomes, and indicators. Yet economic growth, measured by
Gross Domestic Product, still sits at the top of the framework and
dictates much of the subsequent policy. This is clearly evident in recent
policy and legislation including the Better Regulation Bill with its duty
on regulators to contribute to economic growth as well as proposed
changes to Scotlands planning system which seeks to put growth at
the forefront.
Pursuing real prosperity, encapsulated by a consensual measure that
captures what is important to people, would help shift the focus of our
attention and the efforts of our policy-makers so that they sustain our
society, and do not simply kowtow to the economy. It would lead to
24 Scottish Fabians
the prioritisation and reward of social goods (relationships, recycling,
mutuality, play, healthy spaces and so on) as opposed to short-term
economic gain for the fortunate few.
Developed through widespread public consultation with almost 3,000
people in Scotland, the Oxfam Humankind Index enables Scotland to
measure itself by those aspects of life that make a real difference to
people. The Index is an attempt to support a move away from an
economy and society based on inequalities of wealth and pursuit of
relative status, and towards an economy and society which promotes
health (mental and physical) and equality, and reduces poverty,
inequalities and overconsumption. Importantly, because Scotlands
poorest communities are so often excluded from mainstream decision
making, we made particular effort to involve seldom heard groups
when constructing the Index.
Oxfam 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
Scottish Fabians 25
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 dont want huge pots of cash. They want good
health, a secure home, a pleasant environment in which to live,
satisfying work, and a stable, secure income that allows them to care
for their families and to take part in society. We believe the results of
the Index offer a platform for policy makers showing what is important
to the people of Scotland.
Of course such a measurement will only be of help if it actually affects
policy change. That is why Oxfam has developed a Humankind Index
Policy Assessment Tool to help monitor and evaluate the impact of
government policies and private sector activity on the Humankind
Index. We hope policy makers and others will engage with this tool
and move towards more holistic assessments of proposed policies and
their net contribution to society.
Whether it be forthcoming legislation, the Scottish Government's
Budget or debates about Scotland's constitutional future, the
Humankind Index - as a reflection of the priorities of the people of
Scotland - is more important than ever. We hope the Labour party,
and others, build on this work to put community control at the heart
of Scotlands economic development policies.
Some of the content for this article is taken from the recent Oxfam
report Our Economy: Towards a New Prosperity setting out Oxfam
Scotlands vision for the economy:
policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/our-economy-towards-a-
new-prosperity-294239
26 Scottish Fabians
CHANGNG SCOILAND REOURES
CHANGNG HOLROOD
Drew Smith MSP
Parliamentary democracies have evolved all over the world according
to the national contexts in which their institutions have been forged.
Their procedures reflect the circumstances of their creation and, in
most, their legislatures act to check and balance the power of
executive authority.
Parliaments are places of ministerial scrutiny, for legislative
deliberation, and for national debate. Each of these functions are
reflected in the foundation of the Scottish Parliament, but in the case
of Holyrood, other hopes for its function and form were also entwined
at its beginning, and these reflected the desires of Scotland's people
for a new politics. The devolution ideal was for a Parliament which
was not a re-convention of the old Scots Parliament, not a mini-
Westminster and not a super-council. The ambition of Holyrood's
founders was for a Parliament which was easy to access, which
reflected the people it serves and which was participative, with clear
mechanisms which allowed the public to influence its business and its
considerations. Laudable and still relevant aims, but it is also true that
many of the processes which were created for and by the Scottish
Parliament were almost as much a reaction against the practices of
others as a vision of a different way of doing things based on new
ideas. Its electoral system, for example, was famously a compromise
which remains little-loved by anyone, and the rhetoric of Parliament
exercising power in partnership with the executive has fallen by the
way to an unfortunately considerable degree.
The Scottish Labour Party is within its rights to point to the Scotland
Act of the 1997 Labour government as Holyrood's founding document
and it is because of this statute that Scottish Ministers exercise their
Scottish Fabians 27
power on behalf of the Crown, which remains the constitutional
source of government's authority across Britain. Indeed even an
independent Scotland would, according to the Scottish National Party,
retain the Crown and therefore inherit the concept of the Crown as
the source of legitimate power in the land. Yet Holyrood has other
antecedents too. The cross-party and beyond-party Constitutional
Convention, itself a culmination of earlier campaigns and ideas,
produced the key reports which influenced the shape, feel and voice of
the Scottish Parliament we now have. Their deliberations, their ideals
and their mistakes, are as much part of Holyrood's founding as the
Scotland Act, or the plans of the Consultative Steering Group which
draw up many of the rules which the Parliament adopted for itself in
1999. A thread running through the fabric woven by the
Constitutional Convention also reflected even older ideas about from
where sovereignty really stems, and the decision of Tony Blair's
government to put the question of a Scottish Parliament to the people
gives it an added legitimacy beyond that of local government or many
other Scottish institutions. The Scottish Parliament's relationship with
some of these other institutions remains unresolved, and indeed its
tendency to exercise primacy over these bodies betrays the
contradictions in some of its principles put into practice, such as the
goal of subsidiarity and devolution beyond Edinburgh rather than
simply to it.
While Scotland will welcome a verdict in her current preoccupation
with the national question on 18 September 2014, a resolution to her
local question will inevitably need to be found too, regardless of the
outcome in 2014. I have, for example, my own views about how
sustainable it is for the Scottish Parliament to deny local government
the debate on their powers which it so jealously takes for itself. While
local government continues to fight a rear-guard action to hang on to
what it has, it must also struggle with the bulk of the cuts in public
spending on the services for which it is responsible. In contrast, the
Scottish Parliament confidently demands more for itself while seeking
to avoid implication in the reality of what is happening in public
28 Scottish Fabians
CHANGING SCOTLAND REQUIRES CHANGING HOLYROOD
services, or to face scrutiny about the decisions taken in and around its
own precincts, and those of the Scottish Government.
Complaining about power abuses and lamenting lack of partnership in
decision-making are, of course, the hardy perennials of those who
have proximity to power but do not themselves wield it. Meanwhile
those who wish to pull local levers will always be resentful of central
control. Labour's history has largely been a centralising one, reflecting
the left's lust for change which is, at its most simple, class-based rather
than geographically motivated. That said, what used to be called
municipal socialism remains remarkable, more for the extent of its
achievements, rather than the limitations of towns halls as places of
radicalism. The Glasgow Guarantee, which the Scottish Government
itself has admitted is Scotland's biggest policy commitment to tackling
youth unemployment, is just one example of how ideas and principle
can be developed and put into practice by politicians who are not
parliamentarians. Devolution itself is, of course, an example of
Labour's intermittent enthusiasm for decentralisation; as is Johann
Lamont's clear call for Scottish Labour's Devolution Commission to
move beyond and away from consideration of Holyrood reform
through the increasingly facile 'more powers' prism.
Regardless of the powers which Holyrood exercises, or watches
Ministers exercise, it is increasingly clear that the way the Scottish
Parliament goes about its business will have to change. The
Committees once lauded as the jewel in devolution's crown are simply
failing to set an agenda of their own at present; their law-proposing
power remains almost unique but rarely used. Some will,
understandably enough, say that this has always been the case and
that Labour and Liberal MSPs did not scrutinise the previous Scottish
Executive any more closely than SNP backbenchers currently do their
own Ministers. If this is true, then perhaps they did a better job of
pretending. Whatever the policy debate to be had now, it is worth
remembering that, for example, free personal care, before it was
subsequently adopted by the Executive, was originally a policy
promoted by a Holyrood committee at a time when relevant Ministers
were not in support. Compare and contrast this with the Justice
Scottish Fabians 29
Committee's recent scrutiny of Kenny McAskill's local court closures
programme where SNP Members of the Committee voted in favour of
closures after hearing evidence from campaigns to keep the courts
open which some of them were themselves actively involved in
supporting. For an example of the partisan behaviour of the
Conveners, the shameless spectacle of the Education Committee
Convener who, when faced with a scandal over the Education
Secretary's behaviour in wishing to sack the chair of a college board,
toured the TV studios not to explain how his Committee would
examine the issue, but to defend the Education Secretary in advance of
hearing any of the actual evidence.
Beyond how individuals choose to use their positions there does, of
course, remain a problem that the role of Conveners has still not
properly emerged as an alternate route to promotion for MSPs. Media
interest in the work that is done by cross-party committees continues
to fall, caught in a vicious cycle whereby less scrutiny of the
government results in less scrutiny of the committee and thus declining
influence of Parliament as a whole, and no-doubt poorer policy choices
overall.
Scrutiny of the current government is, categorically, being held back by
some of the Parliament's more optimistic procedures. For example, the
lack of recourse available to the Presiding Officer, or any other MSP,
when a Minister makes a statement to the Scottish Parliament which is
demonstrably, or later shown to be, simply untrue. This is a situation
which would not and could not be tolerated by a Speaker of the
Commons, or the rules that House has evolved. A longer running
problem, and one which recent changes to Parliament's sitting times
haven't noticeably helped, is the ludicrously short time which MSPs
take to consider final amendments to legislation which then results in
effectively incidental debates about the overall principle behind the
final bills passed. Likewise, real post-legislative scrutiny, mostly
considered to be essential in a unicameral assembly, remains a far off,
if not far out, aspiration.
30 Scottish Fabians
CHANGING SCOTLAND REQUIRES CHANGING HOLYROOD
The answer for MSPs, of whatever party, interested in trying to restore
greater integrity to the Parliament's systems, cannot simply be to
complain or even just to blame the current party of government.
Scottish Labour and the Scottish National Party are different beasts and
our terms of internal debate come from different traditions. When
Labour next return to government in Edinburgh it is inconceivable that
a Labour parliamentary group could continue to support an executive
in office without a single back-bench rebellion on any issue ever voted
upon. Such a scenario is as unlikely as the current SNP group speaking
out about matters of domestic policy when they are themselves faced
with their own leadership continually changing their views about key
constitutional issues such as the monarchy, defence or the currency.
The answer, for Labour, is neither to ape the SNP's discipline or to
pretend that no 'patsy' questions were ever asked by Labour MSPs at
First Ministers Questions or elsewhere. A much better approach, in my
view, would be for Labour to commit to follow reviews of the
Parliament's powers with a serious, and independent, look at how
Parliament itself is reformed. How can it become a more attractive
spectacle, and a place where power is more genuinely shared between
those who are members of the executive and those who are not? How
can it become a place where the influence of those it represents is felt
more keenly throughout its terms of session and across its work? The
current Presiding Officer has made a number of changes, the most
welcome of which is the addition of more topicality in questions to the
government, but both general and portfolio questions continue to fail
as opportunities for genuine scrutiny. Unlike Westminster, Holyrood
has no official opposition and those who have responsibility, to the
public as well their parties, to shadow Minsters may not even be called
by the system of lottery questions to challenge those who do hold
power. In the absence of a liaison committee, the head of government
is not subjected to the kind of detailed questioning that could add to
the small, and unavoidably partisan, opportunity offered by FMQs.
The Parliament's petitions committee remains a vitally important, if
underused, means of access but what may have been seen as
revolutionary in the 1990s might now be considered fairly minimal in
Scottish Fabians 31
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 - quickly
passed by and no consideration seems to have been given to whether
it had at its heart a kernel of an idea worth trying in other ways.
Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament continue to have some
routine access to aspects of business, including attending as regular
Committee witnesses, but potentially more formal connections which
could have been made between Parliament and other groups, which
hold democratic mandates, such as local government, Scottish MPs or
MEPs have not been created, and only limited joint-working
arrangements exist. Before even considering how reform could
encompass groups further away from day-to-day politics it cannot be
right that in a small country so little is done together. The aftermath
of a referendum, which has the potential to resolve Scotland's current
constitutional uncertainty and which may lead to a further discussion
of the Parliaments powers, may well represent an opportune moment
to consider whether partnership, if not co-decision, on certain areas
might be a possibility worthy of exploration.
Any commitment to review Holyrood's inadequacies - or more
optimistically its further potential - should be made in advance of an
election, and should not be tied to specific reforms before they can be
properly considered. Nor indeed should it be linked to any particular
constitutional outcome, be it independence or further reform of
devolution. Instead Labour should commit to broad principles of
better government and ask for cross-party support for these to be
examined and recommendation made. No incoming government will
be keen to deliver an easier time for their opposition, or often the
public, or to to give away the upper hand they have just fought an
election to win. But, Labour's experience of opposition at Holyrood
should be a salutary one, and one which we resolve to being part of
putting right, not just for the sake of frustrated opposition politicians,
but because of the value we could still place on the prize of a new
politics in Scotland.
32 Scottish Fabians
DELVERNG SOCAL JUSICE IHROUGH
ECONOMC CHANGE
Anas Sarwar MP
Today in Scotland it appears that the only change on offer is
constitutional change. Not change to the way the economy is run so
that it serves everyone equally; not change to the banking system so
that businesses get the support they need to grow and develop; not
change in social security so that it helps those in need and gives a
genuine hand up to those looking for support.
Rather, we have two governments putting their own obsessions before
the needs of the country; one government slavishly following an
economic programme which is clearly not working and another
determined to put their own minority obsession ahead of the countrys
priorities.
Across the UK both governments are led by parties that put the politics
of division ahead of the real challenges. One government which is
controlled by those who seek to divide over the issue of Europe, and in
Scotland a government determined to divide by which part of the
United Kingdom you come from.
That is why Scottish Labour has to offer more than just constitutional
change. We must offer real social and economic change and I believe
there is a real desire for it.
In Scotland today growth is down and unemployment is up, household
incomes 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 is
why Labour must rise to the challenge of delivering social, economic
and environmental justice at a time of austerity. And I believe we can
best do that by following a simple course and base the political
decisions we make on the values we hold as Labour members, the
Scottish Fabians 33
same ones we signed up to when we joined and that hold as true
today as they have ever done.
And while two years out from the General Election it is not possible to
set out what the Labour manifesto will look like in detail, we can set
out the framework of values and principles around which we should
build our manifesto offer. After 13 years in government it is more
important, now we are in opposition, to define now the values and
principles under which we will govern in future.
The principles of equality, community, fairness, solidarity and social
justice are not remnants of the past but forces of good for the future. I
believe we can best deliver for the communities we seek to represent
by using these as our guiding principles.
Labour must stand up to and challenge the notion that Labour can
only deliver in times of plenty but that in times of austerity and
economic downturn only a Tory government will work. Clearly the
evidence of todays economy proves that wrong, but it also has to be
Labours job to set out why, now more than ever, you need a Labour
government working for all.
For Labour that means setting out why the best way to promote social
justice in times of austerity is to deliver economic justice.
But there is not much economic justice to shout about under the
current UK and Scottish governments. Today we see global
companies making billions of pounds in profit but paying not a penny
in tax. And yet we see those companies rewarded, not with public
scorn and condemnation but millions of pounds in government grants.
Thats not just economic immorality on the part of the company, its
political immorality on the part of government for rewarding such
behaviour.
But government does have the power to act, even when money is
tight.
Every year the Scottish public sector spends approximately 10 billion
on procurement. What I want to see is the use of that spending power
34 Scottish Fabians
DELIVERING SOCIAL JUSTICE THROUGH ECONOMIC CHANGE
to drive, not just growth in the economy, but changed behaviour in
the private sector. Procurement should be more than just achieving
value for money for the taxpayer but adding value to the tax money
we 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 and
think about its wider role.
And there are three areas in which I believe we could focus
procurement to support behavioural change:
Firstly, to take action on tax dodging and the use of tax havens. I
believe there is strong public support for banning companies who are
involved in avoiding their fair share of tax from accessing public sector
contracts, bringing tax justice to public procurement.
Secondly, to extend the payment of the living wage into the private
sector for employees working on public contracts and using the
powers of procurement to deliver a positive employment agenda. For a
start this means a public apology and compensation for those whose
working lives have been scarred by blacklisting. But we also have to
address the wider issue of tax-payer funded contracts being used to
perpetuate the practices of low pay employers.
Thirdly, using procurement of public projects to deliver other
government priorities. Government could support SMEs to access very
large contracts by not bundling up contracts into multi-million or
nationwide delivery models, support skills development by building in
proportionate apprentice and skills development expectations,
supporting local economies and environment by ensuring products are
sourced as locally as possible. All of the above is possible if
government has the will.
Its simple, the requirement to lock into the procurement system a duty
to ensure that procurement promotes sustainable economic, social and
environmental well-being; the holy grail of the triple bottom line, what
I would call the common good principle.
Scottish Fabians 35
But procurement is just one vehicle to change the economy and
change the country. We must go further to reform the economy.
In todays global economy it is inevitable that over time labour jobs will
go where labour costs are cheapest. That is why government must act
now to shape our education system, align our further and higher
education establishments, develop our skills and apprentice
programmes to prepare todays generation for tomorrows economy.
The recognition that someone out there is always going to seek to
undercut our jobs market on cost means we must rebuild and reshape
our economy. We mustnt just focus on what we do best but also on
what we can do better. And that means investing in a skills based
economy and equipping the country and its people with the right tools
to flourish.
And alongside people development, government must also invest now
to put in place the infrastructure to support and sustain a modern
economy.
But government will have to do so with much tighter financial
constraints, perhaps over as long a period of 10 years, and this
requires a fundamental rebalancing of our economy so that, yes, it
creates wealth, but the wealth is used for a purpose.
This will not only require tough choices from todays political leaders, it
will require different choices, ignoring the short term for the benefit of
the long term, changing spending priorities today as a way of boosting
growth for tomorrow.
Such rebalancing must be based on our values and must recognise the
need for economic justice. In my constituency today people are being
handed food parcels. Just a short trip away millionaires are being
handed a tax cut. Theres no fairness in that.
In some global companies who operate in Scotland, the cleaner on the
shop floor is paying more in tax on their income than the company
itself, despite multi-billion pound turnovers. Where is the economic
justice in that?
36 Scottish Fabians
DELIVERING SOCIAL JUSTICE THROUGH ECONOMIC CHANGE
Its not enough just for politicians to call for corporate responsibility. If
corporations are unwilling to fulfil their obligations, to recognise they
have a public duty to pay their fair share, then politicians must be
prepared to act to address this behaviour.
I have already mentioned procurement as one carrot to entice
behavioural change. A stick approach might well be required and
exploration of country by country reporting or reform of the tax system
to reflect in-country transactions are also worth considering.
And because our values dont stop at borders, because we dont just
want corporate responsibility at home but right across the world, we
should be taking action to ensure global responsibilities are met.
Today, developing countries lose three times more from tax evasion
than they receive in aid. Sadly, economic immorality isnt just practised
here in the UK and that is why we need to work in partnership with
others, not stand in isolation, to secure real change.
But those of us on the left also have to look at rebalancing the
economy in other ways.
Firstly, by taking a principled and values based stance against George
Osborne and the Tory rights plans to shrink the size of the state to a
level below that of the post-war average.
We need to do more on making the case for intervention in times of
austerity rather than relying solely on public sector cuts as a way of
balancing the books and by evidencing how intervention can deliver
on our values.
Both Eds recognise the value of supporting short term borrowing to
support investment in infrastructure. Indeed, Labour has placed capital
investment as one of its key economic planks to restore growth to the
economy.
Secondly, the left could make a robust argument, again based on our
values, for substituting tax rises for some of the planned cuts. The
millionaires tax cut should be reversed and the bankers bonus
Scottish Fabians 37
repeated, both measures focussed on ensuring those with the
broadest shoulders bear the biggest burden.
Thirdly, government could do more to ensure it was not stripping out
demand and consumption from the market. Supporting the Living
Wage and driving up the household incomes of lower and middle
income households will help deliver greater equality but also mean
greater spending to help to promote economic growth.
Yet lower and middle income households are the two groups who
appear to have been targeted by this government, with all the
evidence showing that the most affluent households have come off
lightest under the governments austerity measures.
All of the above measures cut right to the heart of the Labour
movement and our political values. We dont just believe in building
new schools or railways because they are good things to have
(although they are) and we dont just believe in re-balancing tax
revenues more fairly because its the right thing to do (which it is) but
because by carrying out these types of government interventions we
are 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. Its also pretty clear that the
next few years are going to be just as tough as the global economy
shows no signs of recovering to pre-slump levels.
These demonstrate the need for real change now. Despite the prism of
constitutional politics Labour must continue to focus on the real battles
and not solely about which politicians have which powers in which
building.
Because that is why Labour exists, to fight for equality and social
justice but crucially to put our principles and values into practice.
38 Scottish Fabians
DEVOLUION AS AN ECONOMC
AMBION
Daniel Johnson, Duncan Hothersall
Scottish political debate is dominated by the twin policy Goliaths of the
constitution and the economy, to the point where the two often
merge. The question which both sides of the independence debate
seem to be answering is: in what constitutional arrangement would
Scotland be better off? But surely the real question is this: how do we
make our economy work better for Scots?
The priority of economic issues is not in doubt. But simply redrawing
borders does nothing to tackle the economic issues and challenges
faced by Scotland. What is needed is a radical reworking and
realignment of our economy, focusing on the people that work in it
and the relationship the economy has with society. It is this radical
idea of driving power to people, empowering them and organising
around their needs and abilities which lies at the heart of successful
economies, and also lies at the heart of devolution.
Whats Wrong?
Scottish economic policy is stuck in a laissez-fair rut. While the
misguided monetarist policies of Margaret Thatcher may have
triggered the economic collapse of once dominant industries,
subsequent governments have done little to correct them. Through
the 1990s and 2000s governments, both SNP and Labour, pursued a
strategy of deregulation and non-intervention. While this clearly
brought rewards for the white collar, service sector workers in
Scotlands cities, it did little for those living in former steel towns or in
the shadow of dockyard cranes.
Oil is the other dominant feature of the Scottish economy, to the
point where discussion of the constitution invariably leads to discussion
Scottish Fabians 39
of oil. Its role and what it could provide for Scotland are constantly
replayed. But this role is also troubling. Without oil receipts, Scotland
would have a deficit of around 14%
1
, and fluctuations in either the
price of oil or the supply from North Sea fields has a dramatic impact
on the health of the Scottish tax receipt. Surely we want an economy
that works on its own merits rather than relying on geological good
fortune?
Our national economic well-being requires a reinvention of our
economic architecture. Relying on banks and oil is neither the basis for
a secure economy nor the route to an inclusive one. The Labour
traditions of equity, solidarity and mutual industry should form a new
and radical ambition to transform the Scottish economy.
This ambition is a radical rejection of the neo-liberal insistence that the
role of the state in economic matters must be confined to the macro
level - that government must confine itself to being an arch- regulator
and nothing more. Nor do we seek to turn the clock back to a
corporatist model where the state seeks to take control and ownership
of the economy. The focus of this new perspective must be on the
relationships within the economy and the mode of action must be that
of facilitator rather than either bystander or owner. This is why the
principle of devolution is key; it is a focus on the relationship of the
individual and power. It is also why it is correct for the devolved
Scottish government to champion this new economic perspective it is
best placed to facilitate and influence within the wider economic
framework of the UK.
What kind of economy do we want?
What does a devolved economy look like? Undoubtedly it would have
a well-supported and active entrepreneurial element, underpinning
indigenous enterprise and measuring success by not only economic
output but popular involvement. Elsewhere in this publication Kezia
Dugdale sets out some stark statistics on the lack of entrepreneurship
1 Average budget deficit including capital expenditure, excluding North Sea Oil Revenue, between
2007-2008 and 2011-2012, Table 2a, Government Expenditure and Revenue, The Scottish
Government March 2013
40 Scottish Fabians
DEVOLUTION AS AN ECONOMIC AMBITION
in Scotland and some excellent ideas about how to lift the level of this
activity. A key plank of economic empowerment is building the
capacity for self-employment.
We also need to drive up the quality of work and the quality of
companies. Too often economic success for an employed individual is
measured solely by wage levels. As Francis Stuart and Katherine
Trebeck tell us in their contribution, there are many more, and more
important, measures of success. Job security for individuals, and with it
the economic security of families and communities, needs to be
brought to the fore. Sustainability of economic activity, and its rooting
in communities, can give better long-term economic outcomes than
the corporatism we see taking root in many parts of Scotland today.
And security, health and job satisfaction are the real goals many are
trying to reach through their employment not profit generation.
Better companies means, at the very least, breaking the cycle of its
aye been and embracing change. The Kaizen principle a Japanese
approach which involves every employee being encouraged to come
up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis has the
potential to drive major improvement if it can be instilled into the
Scottish economic psyche. We are not short of ideas for improvement,
as many of us will know from our daily work. But how many feel
powerless to instigate the changes they see necessary? Kaizen means a
commitment to improvement from the whole company. It involves
setting standards and then continually improving those standards. It is
a cultural shift to which Scottish industry should aspire.
A devolved economy is also one in which vocational learning is world
class, 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 also
contribute to community cohesiveness and a sense of economic
identity which has been eroded in recent years. And while allowing
large industry to dictate vocational training can be unhealthy,
partnership working with employers, large and small, can help colleges
to continuously improve their offerings.
Scottish Fabians 41
How do we build it?
A critical element of any economic plan is an investment architecture.
The devolved economy needs a new Scottish investment bank
providing capital and expertise, but more significantly it requires a
framework for regional lending. A regional approach not only allows
for local understanding to drive investment decisions, but enables the
sort of smaller-scale and lower-barrier contributions which are critical
for start-up and self-led businesses. Too much of todays available
small-scale debt funding is locked behind barriers designed to reduce
risk, while the risk-taking investment funds restrict themselves to large
investments which benefit only the already successful business. The
closer the decision-makers are to the communities in which companies
are being formed, the better able they will be to assess risk more
effectively. Too many potentially successful, if small-scale, businesses
are denied the investment they need as a result of this structural
imbalance.
The Scottish Government must revitalise how it engages with
enterprise. To effect the change we want to see in our companies, the
Scottish Government needs to do more than hold drinks receptions
with 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 neither
particularly well.
Programmes are needed to ensure that knowledge, practices, people
and resources are shared and exchanged. Government must actively
seek out opportunities to work with the private sector to their mutual
benefit. Likewise effort must be put into ensuring that people and
skills flow freely between public and private sectors. This would seek
to promote innovation, spread best practice and deliver an economy
that integrates private and public sector activity.
Key to devolution as an economic principle is a renewed focus on the
relationship between the individual and the organisations within which
they work. A new emphasis on workplace learning and people
development must be pursued. Successful companies and vibrant
42 Scottish Fabians
DEVOLUTION AS AN ECONOMIC AMBITION
economies are underpinned by constant renewal of skills and capability
at work. If we are to break the low-wage, low-opportunity cycle in
which much of post industrial Scotland is stuck, we need a step
change in how our companies support and develop their people.
Scotland must aim to have the best vocational education system in the
world. We must have apprenticeships that are rigorous and
demanding. We must ensure that university courses are relevant and
develop useful skills. Too much of our education system has a mindset
of 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 these
systems.
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 to
building a vibrant, dynamic economy cannot be about shifting where
national state power lies. It has to be about changing the relationship
that 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 the
economy as it can to government: in both instances it is about
empowering people and changing the relationship between power
and people.
This essay, in keeping with the themes of this pamphlet, has
deliberately sought to set out aspirations rather than policy. Much of
what we seek will not be easy to achieve and requires radical change
in the way government thinks and behaves. But if Scotland is to be an
economic power house once again, we are convinced that these are
the ambitions we must have.
Scottish Fabians 43
PUBLC SERVCES ~ COULD WE DO BEIIER?
Richard Kerley
Were 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 to
receive the state pension; another of the pillars of the Welfare State.
Both the NHS and social protection are changing, of course. Many
people will now wait longer for a state pension, just as many of us find
the NHS very different from what we can remember from when we
first came into contact with it. We can also be certain that there is
more change to come, in these two key features as in so many other
aspects of the Welfare State. Such changes will happen whatever party
is in government; whatever the constitutional status of the country we
live in; and whatever government in London or in Edinburgh takes
these decisions. What we need to focus on is why such changes might
be needed, and how they can be best effected to make better
provision for those currently not particularly well served by our public
services.
The manner in which those aspects of public service provision that we
casually label the Welfare State are sometimes discussed is often very
unhelpful, and reflects badly on the assumptions that political parties
make about the citizens whom they hope will elect them to office and
power. It sometimes appears that politicians seeking to gain and hold
office often treat the people who elect them as susceptible to wild
claims, to be easily swayed and unable to assess practical options and
choices themselves.
Broadly speaking the terms of such political exchange can be
categorised as parties in opposition condemning the party, or parties,
in government for either irreparably destroying the fabric of a central
part of the Welfare State, or not doing enough to sustain it and
develop it in the manner self-evidently needed. The key characteristic
44 Scottish Fabians
PUBLIC SERVICES COULD WE DO BETTER?
of this discussion if we can call it that is an assumption that the
scale, shape and form of the components of the Welfare State are
mutually reinforcing, consistent in their features and successfully fulfil
their assumed objectives. This phenomenon is particularly marked in
Scotland as, in effect, what we created in 1997-1999 was a Parliament
for public services. Reinforcing that emphasis on public services was an
almost total reliance on financing through an appropriation from
Westminster the Scottish block and a surge post-1999 on the
volumes of such revenues available. Holyrood was launched on a wave
of increased public spending that is now being reined back and is
unlikely to grow again at the rate it did in the 00s. Broadly speaking
the mark of achievement in the new Parliament was to propose
spending more, with limited consideration on whether we might
actually spend very differently from the historic trajectory inherited as
part of the UK driven Welfare State.
None of this helps us as a society think about what extent, form and
shape we might expect, and want, such provision to take in future: the
level of taxes we pay; whether we pay fees or charges for some
services and at what level; and what services are provided through
some form of local discretionary decision making and others
determined by central government. Such discussion also needs to take
account of the broader changes in social values and behaviours that
have emerged over time and continue to transform society and all of
us as members of that society.
It also needs to take account of how we have seen an expanding sense
of what is assumed to be part of the array of public service provision
that we now take to be an essential part of a network of state
provided or sponsored services. Whether that array of public services is
now properly referred to as The Welfare State might also be part of
any such discussion. Is unquestioned access regardless of income or
circumstances to emergency hospital care in the same category as free
bus travel for older people? Are discounted tickets to theatre and
concerts for unemployed people and those on other benefits of
equivalence in priority as adequate housing for all? The gradual
development and emergence of this network of public services
Scottish Fabians 45
intended to create social solidarity, address market failure and help
those disadvantaged by such failures is a confused tangle of provision
and 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 a
century under governments (in Westminster and also now Holyrood) of
different political parties has been far more tangled, and sometimes
mutually contradictory, despite the best efforts of many of those
involved.
Ill do so by examining two often unexamined and different aspects of
how various forms of public services are provided to us and try and
suggest a general approach we might apply to help us think about
how we better prepare for change in the future. My focus here does
not address any of the direct cash transfer payments of The Welfare
State as these are discussed elsewhere in this publication.
Free at the point of use?
There are various of our public services where our consumption of
them is (broadly) free at the point of use, and the contribution we
make is in whatever form we are able to make a contribution as a
citizen that is through the range of taxes we pay in various forms,
whether these are direct or indirect. Such complex arrangements are
not unique to the United Kingdom because in many societies the
public service resource mix is a blend of taxes, insurance, fees and
charges in varied proportions.
Our particular blend of these is not often publicly debated or
discussed, except in the highly partisan terms of party conflict referred
to above. The consequence of such a failure to examine and discuss
such things is that we find change emerging by default, rather than
debate and design, in a way that is considered by citizens in a studied
way 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 do
for entertainment, self-education and enlightenment. As it happens,
46 Scottish Fabians
many aspects of these activities are organised or supported in the not
for profit sector by local authority departments, but often on a basis
that is itself confused and owes a great deal to historical legacy. If we
want to use a library anywhere we can borrow books and use other
services, simply through use of a library card at no charge. If we
want to use a gym or swimming pool owned by the same council we
generally have to pay, perhaps discounted for age, or for a variety of
other circumstances. Go to a council or other public art gallery or
museum, and for the general collection our access will be free;
however if we want to go to the theatre, or attend a concert (also
often in council owned or supported facilities) we shall have to pay.
We just take such legacy arrangements as a given, whether long
standing (library book borrowing) or more recently re-established, such
as free access to the general collections of national galleries and
museums.
Partly as a consequence of not publicly discussing or reviewing such
arrangements, the social outcomes of those arrangements are rarely
considered either. The argument for free access to libraries, galleries
and museums is based on arguments for open and equal access to our
cultural assets in a way that is available to all; an excellent aspiration.
Yet current arrangements are far from achieving this. Entry to and
usage of galleries, museums, concerts and theatre is demographically
skewed toward the financially and socially privileged. In addition there
are the mystified and gratified overseas visitors, most of whom are
used to paying an entry fee, even in countries where social provision is
in some respects more extensive than in the UK. In addition, one of the
perverse consequence of the current regime for access to galleries and
museums is a direct function of governments making free access
available for the general public collection. In galleries across the UK the
outcome of this has been a growth in special exhibitions that can
legitimately be charged for (an example of what economists would call
a perverse organisational incentive). In some public galleries a large
portion of the year (and of the galleries) is now dedicated to such
special exhibitions. In some cases, although I have not yet observed
Scottish Fabians 47
this in Scotland, the special exhibitions give some appearance of being
contrived, presumably to enable charges to be levied.
Similarly, in the far more life critical health services of various kinds
experience and evidence shows us that there is social gradient to
usage and uptake, despite the provision of services free at the point of
use. The introduction of widespread age differentiated screening
opportunities whether it be bowels or eye health has increased
screening and increased the earlier diagnosis of various conditions, but
it has done so on a basis that reaches a higher proportion of those in
higher social classes. Time after time and programme after programme
we introduce interventions labelled as universal which in reality benefit
the already privileged.
Access for all?
One of the foundation myths of the Welfare State as it emerged was
that of equal and open access to all.
I use the term myth because it was just that, and in some cases the
myth was sustained by deliberate governmental deceit.
When selective education was widespread, we know that secondary
entry test scores in parts of Wales for example were manipulated
to ensure a lower proportion of girls passed because there were fewer
places in selective girls schools. In health provision, specialist services
have always been concentrated in the larger conurbations, initially
because of the social dynamic of wealth and philanthropy that led to
the creation of voluntary hospitals and influenced by the location
preferences of key decision makers. More recently, we have come to
recognise that health interventions tend to be more successful when
medical teams deal with lots of patients so constantly develop their
expertise and achieve better outcomes for a greater proportion of the
patients they see. The provision consequences of that are clear and
unsurprising. The best neuro and cardiac surgeons tend to be found in
the specialist centres; these are concentrated to maximise use of
facilities and expertise and so not found in every district hospital. The
positive results of concentration of stroke treatment response in
48 Scottish Fabians
Greater London shows the advantages of that, but there is a message
here that does not go down well in areas that feel they may suffer a
perceived loss.
One of the worrying examples of this is in the provision of higher
education in Scotland, where in various shapes and forms we have had
alternatives to the fee regime that applies in a manner that means, in
effect students in Scotland (and those from other EU countries outside
the UK) can study at undergraduate level with no fee. In effect, over
almost 13 years, students here have had a fee-free regime when
compared to undergraduate degree education in England. The results
to date have been interesting, and somewhat inconvenient for all
those who argue that free higher education alone is self-evidently
attractive to and beneficial for young people from poorer backgrounds
and households with limited or no experience of higher education. Our
figures for admission of students from such backgrounds does not
show that result. Indeed, two recent separate studies seem to show
that our record of encouraging entry into HE from such households
has hardly budged over a decade and a half and more, and is worse
than can be found in England, although he impact there of much
higher fees has not yet fully permeated through to intake figures. Fees
alone are not the answer to increasing access into HE from lower
income households.
If we want to look at a more everyday example we can consider the
disadvantages of the current arrangement we have for free bus travel
for older people. Country wide free bus travel was introduced by the
LabLib Dem administration to support a better and improved social
life amongst older people through mobility, partly as a means of
sustaining good health and well-being into later years. It may do this,
though the evidence is ambiguous and the outcome has not been fully
researched over time. If it is beneficial, and I suspect it is for younger
older people, it really only achieves this impact for people who actually
have a bus service near them going to where they want to go. Even in
close proximity to our major cities, access to bus services varies widely.
Elsewhere, in many rural areas of Scotland and even parts of some
urban and mixed areas bus services are limited and infrequent. The
Scottish Fabians 49
concessionary pass is in effect, a bus voucher of the kind Sir Keith
Joseph favoured for school education that cannot be used for free
travel in other forms of transport, whether taxis or voluntary
community transport; let alone fare-free travel by rail. Such an
arrangement, which I estimate to have equivalent to a purchasing
parity value of between 900 and 1200 per year, might be equivalent
to about 3 months basic state pension for some tax payers and is
therefore of very limited use to many notional beneficiaries.
What can we do?
First we have to be clear that there is considerable difference between
what we can do and what we should do. I will always argue that if we
explore and tease out the can do possibilities then that sometimes
helps us form some collective and shared views on what we should do.
However, can & should are always interlinked in a complex manner
that enables opponents to leap on any suggestion of open debate and
any questioning of current norms of provision. Perhaps there is a
greater tendency to this form of defensive attack in a Parliament
where in many issues there is a remarkable degree of tacit consensus
across most of the major parties. What we see has been described as a
preference for consensus over evidence in Scottish public policy
decisions.
The debate is not an easy one to take on, and the Labour Party has
sometimes avoided it, sometimes mishandled it. However we do need
to have the courage to continue to promote such debate, not least
because as public awareness grows and it will those parties that
refuse to address such matters publicly will be seen as evasive and
weak. We should firmly opt for the stance that the citizens of this
country, and the electorate, are more thoughtful than we sometimes
give them credit for.
At the core of any debate that we might promote is a proposition that
this is not simply a means of arguing for better controls on
expenditure, but also because, as I have instanced above, much of that
expenditure does not reach the parts of society it is claimed and
assumed to reach and we all have a shared interest in that.
50 Scottish Fabians
Our representatives in Parliament should be taking every chance to
question, explore and challenge on which policy decisions and
legislative change is introduced. This kind of forensic policy analysis
can attract fewer headlines and shorter coverage than the shock
horror splash but over time it impacts on governments, partially
because it leads them to become doubtful of their prescriptions.
MSPs could also pay far more attention to those instances where
campaigning organisations probe government policy and propose
alternative solutions, even where it has developed as part of a broader
cross party consensual climate. So, for example, Age Scotland is
running such a campaign on free bus transport, arguing for the
concessionary travel pass to incorporate community transport rather
than just service buses, and meeting potential cost consequences
through considering an increase in the age of eligibility to a common
age of 65 rather than 60 for new beneficiaries.
In the medium term and at a broader policy level we could plan for a
future Scottish Government to introduce and implement policy impact
audits for all future policy developments and legislative initiatives.
Current protocols even legislation mandate or encourage various
assessments of proposed changes, yet rarely attempt to probe policy
effectiveness in the wider sense in prospective legislation. The office of
the Auditor General for Scotland is limited in the extent to which it can
assess policy effectiveness in so there are gaps in both prospect and
retrospect. Change in understanding and exploring whether what
government says it intends might actually be achieved is needed, and it
can be introduced.
Our public services our Welfare State have much complexity and
often address hard to reconcile, even if desirable, objectives. Change
here is not simply about cost and affordability though both are
important but whether what we think we are achieving is actually
being achieved. It is often not; and we could do better.
Scottish Fabians 51
DOUBLE DEVOLUIONt DEVO MARK IWO
Sarah Boyack MSP
Last year, across Scotland, Labour councillors were elected in greater
numbers. They set out what they would do to use power whether in
government or in opposition.
Across the country Labour candidates put forward positive practical
ideas that chimed with peoples experiences and aspirations for their
communities.
It was the first local election since the 1990s to be held separately from
another election. For Labour our ambition was not to see the elections
as a stepping stone to another agenda, but as an opportunity to win
peoples support for practical, forward-looking policies to invest in
local services and to use scarce resources to best effect. Local issues
were to the fore with a Labour manifesto written locally in every
council seat where we stood candidates. Ours was not a top down
process, it was about connecting Labour values of equality, fairness,
social justice and solidarity with the needs and aspirations of local
communities across Scotland.
We didnt just see more Labour councillors elected we saw a more
representative range of councillors elected, from different walks of life.
We saw many first time candidates, significantly more women
councillors and a modest increase in black and ethnic minority
communities elected. That didnt happen by accident. It was the result
of a determined effort to modernise and open out our selection
processes following the Review of Labour in Scotland.
Councillors are direct community representatives taking the voice of
local people to determine the priorities for delivering services and
setting the strategic direction for council officials. Thats why it matters
to 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 election
pledges whether in power as majority groups, as coalition partners,
or as opposition councillors working constructively to improve peoples
quality of life across the country. Their pledges were not issued from
on high as a one-size-fits-all solution, but were developed by our local
teams as a result of listening to local communities and consulting with
interest groups. They were built on Labour values of equality and
fairness and were designed to support communities through tough
economic times, with a focus on training and job creation to get local
economies going again.
There are some fantastic initiatives, radical ideas and new ways of
delivering services to make the most of the resources available.
Just to take training for example theres the Edinburgh Guarantee;
Falkirks work with employers to give young people real opportunities;
and Glasgows regeneration built on the opportunities created by the
Commonwealth Games.
Labour is doing politics differently by involving communities in policy
development. In Edinburgh for example, Moving Edinburgh
Forward, our manifesto for the local elections, was developed
through consulting with local people. This has now been followed up
by public consultation on the draft budget both this year and last year
and by the establishment of Edinburghs Transport Forum which is
designed to give stakeholders a real say in transport priorities.
Labour groups are also thinking how they deliver services in ways that
maximise community involvement, such as the co-operative councils
movement.
But there are challenges. First and foremost a financial settlement
which does not meet existing service cost pressures. Then there are the
demographic and social justice challenges highlighted by the Christie
Commission, and the need to address urgently the infrastructure and
service investment required to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Those challenges are compounded by the fact that our civic
leaderships have fewer staff who are doing more with less and
Scottish Fabians 53
responding to a pace of change stretching human and technological
resources.
The SNP government have put local services in a financial straitjacket,
and the combination of SNP centralisation and Tory spending cuts
have put local government in financial difficulties not seen since the
Thatcher era. Meanwhile councils are rightly diverting scarce resources
into proactive support for people whose family budgets are being
turned upside down by new, punitive Tory policies.
The combination of an underfunded council tax freeze, rising demand
for services and Tory welfare reforms threatens the financial viability of
services that we all take for granted.
There has already been a price paid for this perfect storm. Thousands
of council staff have lost their jobs, services are under severe pressure
and the cost of the SNPs council tax freeze is being paid by those on
lowest incomes. The social impact will wipe out progress made in
tackling poverty and is reinforcing disadvantage in communities which
are already excluded from the mainstream. Women are particularly
affected as nearly two thirds of public sector workers are female and
they are more likely to be front-line users of our squeezed services.
Local government is now more dependent than ever on the Scottish
Government for its funding, with council tax now representing only
11% of the money required to run local services.
What an irony the government which spends every press release
telling us we need to devolve more financial powers to the Scottish
Parliament has actually been the most centralising government in
history. It has used the powers it has to put a stranglehold on local
government. Early promises of a new equal partnership between
Scottish Government and local authorities have been set aside as SNP
ministers exercise tighter and tighter central controls. We need to
understand how we got here.
Repairing this assault on local democracy will not be fixed by a piece of
paper promising local government general competence status.
Councils have had the power which Labour enacted to promote
54 Scottish Fabians
community well-being for a decade, but the SNP have robbed them of
the capacity to use that power.
Labours support for devolution throughout the 20th century was
never about wresting power from the British state only to centralise it
in our newly established Scottish Parliament. Labour politicians such as
JP Mackintosh, John Smith and Gordon Brown didnt envisage a model
which simply transplanted a cut down centralised British state being
installed in Edinburgh, nor was it part of the vision supported by the
Constitutional Convention. Indeed in early debates in the Scottish
Parliament, the importance of a partnership relationship was a clear
vision shared across the Parliament and local government.
The referendum on independence should therefore not just be a
debate about what the Scottish Parliament does; it should be a debate
about what powers our local authorities need to meet the aspirations
of communities across Scotland, and how we ensure that local
decision making promotes new opportunities to regenerate and
improve our communities. Labours Devolution Commission has
proposed that we should go further and consider what decisions and
powers should be devolved to individual communities to enable them
to make the most of the energies and resources of local people
working together to improve their lives.
Powers for a Purpose sets out the clear objective of reversing the
centralisation of the SNP years and calls for a reinvigoration of our
local democracy and empowerment of our communities.
Our Island Councils have responded to the constitutional debate by
issuing their call for specific powers in Our Islands Our Future. We
need to build on the strengths and opportunities across Scotland, not
pretend that one size fits all when it comes to the range of challenges
that 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 be
devolved to local or community levels, how councils can be supported
to have the capacity to meet the needs and aspirations of local
Scottish Fabians 55
communities, and how we empower those communities to act - for
example in developing projects that make use of buildings and land.
Over the coming months Scottish Labour will be setting out our ideas
in more detail. Here are my demands for tackling the big issues that
we know have to be addressed.
1. We must make local government finance sustainable in the long
run and give local authorities a range of options so that they can
respond to local demands and circumstances. We need to fix the
SNPs underfunded Council Tax freeze. By the next local
elections it will be 25 years since the last local revaluation and 9
years since the council tax freeze. We need to be more creative.
What about looking at Edinburgh City Councils proposals for a
locally set tourist tax? The SNP have rejected the proposal, but
similar local levies are used in other European countries.
2. We must identify the fiscal levers that could be devolved from
the Scottish or UK governments to our local authorities. For
example what about the potential benefits of devolving the
Crown Estate Commissions powers, or are there other measures
currently dealt with at the Scottish Parliament level which could
be devolved?
3. We must increase the level of participation in local government
elections and encourage a broader range of people to stand as
councillors. When PR for local government was mooted it was
suggested that because every vote counted wed see an increase
in the number of people voting. Yet turn out for local
government elections continues to drop, and the most recent
elections last year saw a reduced number of candidates.
4. We must encourage more interest from and engagement by
young people in the decisions made which directly affect their
lives. With 16 and 17 year-olds being given the chance to vote in
next years referendum surely this is a chance to reflect on the
impact of the Scottish Youth Parliament. What about a local
focus on civic education and linking young peoples
56 Scottish Fabians
organisations into local decisions? With the emphasis on the
legacy of Londons Olympics and Glasgows Commonwealth
Games being discussed in terms of new sports investment, this is
an opportunity to debate with young people what sort of
facilities and support could open up opportunities for them.
5. Then there are challenges for young people who are already
organised, for example, as young trade unionists or student
activists. How many of them ever stand for, never mind vote in,
council elections? Are there opportunities to engage such people
and groups in the day-to-day decisions which affect them, such
as housing, community safety and transport?
6. And what about groups historically under-represented such as
women and people from BME communities? Last year Labours
proportion of women councillors increased across Scotland. That
wasnt an electoral accident but the result of encouraging
community activists and women with an interest in improving
their communities to stand. While we also increased the
numbers of council candidates we stood from BME communities,
we need to do much more between elections to build links and
encourage people to come forward. That process of engaging
communities must also shape policy delivery. For BME
communities in particular there are huge challenges developing
appropriate support for older people which is simply not present
in mainstream services for members of our diverse ethnic
minority communities.
7. Councils must be encouraged and supported to enable local
communities to determine service priorities in their own areas.
Local area committees with budgets could be one way to
empower communities to set their own mark on whats needed.
Other countries have much more locally driven community
decision making processes. What can we learn from them and
how do we generate the resources to make this possible given
the current and projected financial resources which are likely to
be available?
Scottish Fabians 57
8. Across Scotland there are community groups using the powers
which Labour championed in the first term of the Scottish
Parliament and legislated for through the Land Reform Act to
own and manage land and resources for the benefit of the wider
community. A decade on from that ground-breaking act we
should be debating where we go next. We must extend those
powers to urban communities and incentivise communities to
work together to regenerate areas which have been pushed
further into the vicious cycle of disinvestment in these tough
economic times. We could be looking at transfer of land to
communities for community growing projects such as allotments
or community orchards, or the transfer of buildings which have
no economic use and are surplus to requirement. We should give
communities the opportunity to develop social enterprises or co-
ops which generate income locally. As our town centres struggle
to deal with the pressures of changing consumer habits, what
about giving local start-up businesses the chance to make
something of locations which need vitality? And what
opportunities could be created by devolving Crown Estate
powers not just to the Scottish Parliament, but to local
government and or local communities?
9. This autumn the Scottish Parliament debates the Procurement
Bill. We must maximise the opportunities for spending our
money for local services in ways which will stimulate local
purchasing and give local companies, voluntary sector providers
or co-operatives the chance to provide locally-driven services
which help regenerate and reinvest in communities rather than
seeing money disappearing from our local economies.
10. We must learn from the community renewables movement
which has developed in the last decade and extend those lessons
to urban areas. There has been a raft of community projects
across our rural communities but theres heat and power
potential still untapped in many places. Aberdeen City under
Labour leadership established an arms length community heat
and power company which has rolled out projects tackling fuel
58 Scottish Fabians
poverty and reducing CO
2
emissions across the city. Glasgow has
just established its own energy services company and Edinburgh
is promoting a co-operative model with its first community
cooperative, the Harlaw Hydro scheme, under way.
Thats only a starter for 10. And they involve many challenges. One
persons postcode lottery is anothers local diversity. We need a debate
about where the balance should lie between the different levels of
governance which is open and transparent. Scotland is a country
where one size doesnt fit all because of our geography, our local
identities and our different cultures.
The Christie Commission highlighted the need to invest in solutions to
the deep seated social inequalities and problems which scar too many
of our communities. We need to debate the implications of changing
demographics and develop new ways to support people throughout
longer lives.
Our changing climate will see us needing to spend more and
differently to ensure that our infrastructure is made more robust and is
modernised. Communication and manufacturing technologies will
open new opportunities most of us cant even imagine. But we need
to make sure that those social and economic opportunities are made
real across the country.
The key is that those decisions should be driven by a desire to make
Scotland a more equal, fairer country. For us in Labour we need to
learn from our own time in government. I remember one of our
mantras at the time was what matters is what works. On one level
that makes complete sense. It was an obvious statement not to let
dogma get in the way of intelligent decisions. The recent
determination of the Tory government to privatise the East Coast Main
Line despite its success is testament to that. But we need more than
that. Looking back I think we should have asked for more out of the
money we spent on public contracts. Im absolutely not calling for
politicians to be more managerial but to make sure were better at
following through an implementation to check for example that
training opportunities for young people do actually happen. That
Scottish Fabians 59
means being clear about our political values, it means being creative
and innovative as we implement policies to deliver economic
regeneration and stronger communities.
In a paper for the Centre for Public Policy in 2003 I argued for
overarching policy objectives to ensure government policies worked in
concert not in opposition. So when we set the objective of reducing
our carbon emissions we need to factor in social justice impact and
maximise economic opportunities too. Crucially we need to go back to
those policies and ask if they have delivered on our ambitions over
time.
When the Scottish Parliament was established, Labours ambition was
to ensure that decisions were taken closer to home, that those
decisions were more transparent and that equalities and social justice
drove policies so that historic injustice and disadvantage in our
communities could be tackled. The first years of the Scottish
Parliament have focused on getting things right at the national level. If
we are to meet the challenges of the next decades, and stay true to
the principles which drove us to establish our Parliament, we now
need to turn more attention towards local decision making and
empowering our communities.
We need to set out a vision for local decision making that sees
opportunities for local leadership across public and private institutions;
that mobilises to build the infrastructure and human resilience to cope
with and rise to the challenges we face; and that does it together in
solidarity. That would be a positive legacy to follow on from the era of
SNP centralisation.
60 Scottish Fabians
LABOUR, EUROPE AND SCOILAND
Catriona Munro
Labour has long sought to be the party of positive engagement in the
European Union. The SNP despite facing serious questions about
whether, and if so the terms on which, Scotland might even continue
as a member were there to be a Yes vote in next years referendum
has tried to go one better than that by asserting that Scotland would
have greater influence in the European Union as an independent state.
The Tories have promised to look at repatriating powers prior to a
referendum yet their balance of competences review has concluded
that the current position is largely appropriate and that the UK stands
to benefit from further single market measures in a range of sectors.
The Lib Dems, notionally a pro European party, have no doubt been
severely damaged by their association with the Tories over the last
three years. As we approach a general election and Holyrood
elections, where should Labour position itself on the EU and what
could Scotland's role be in this?
Today, the reasons for the establishment of the EU are in history books
rather than in memories. The EU, scarcely covered by the media and,
when it is, portrayed as an enormous bureaucracy remote from our
daily lives, had a poor reputation even before the current economic
crisis. The tensions in the Euro zone that have been exposed have had
enormous human costs in an attempt to salvage the single currency.
Yet overall, weighing the pluses against the minuses, we are surely
better off in the EU. Over the piece, the UK has benefited from EU
membership through growth, competitiveness and access to markets,
not to mention the freedom to travel, work and study abroad. Open
and competitive telecoms, energy and infrastructure markets deliver a
more competitive economy that can hold its own on the world stage.
Perhaps most importantly from a historical perspective not only has the
EU delivered the longest peace these countries have known, but has
Scottish Fabians 61
integrated and bolstered the democracies of many of the former
communist bloc countries in a remarkably short period of time.
The economic and social arguments in favour of the EU are perhaps
more powerful than ever before. With the rise of major competing
economies such as China, there is all the more reason to tackle trade
issues in the WTO as an EU bloc. A single market in goods and
services across the EU is surely good for businesses and consumers
both because they can buy and sell throughout and because it ensures
keener competition with the best surviving. And a single market
supported by social measures, ensuring equal pay, fair working hours
and health and safety at work is surely something which all on the left
would support. On climate change and other environmental
measures, for instance, the EU as a whole can potentially achieve
much more than could its parts. It is a given that the future is a more
international one, one where issues need to be resolved by countries
working together, where, if we did not have the EU, we would be
desperately trying to invent it. We need access to markets and
influence on the international stage.
Of course, the EU is not without flaws. The Euro remains in crisis and
recovery is still a hope rather than a certainty, with austerity crippling
many in the Euro zone. The common agricultural policy remains a vast
cost to EU members, an historic hangover from times when a
command economy in food was justified; today the protection of the
environment, health and fair trade with the developing world should
be 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 a
tit for tat battle between the EU and China based on protectionism
and political shenanigans rather than competitiveness. Migration
within the EU presents real economic challenges which to date have
not been faced up to. And despite the significant legislative powers
that the European Parliament does now have, few bother to go out to
vote in its elections. Perhaps most importantly, the EU remains a
lumbering enigma to most people, its activities and working
understood by lobbyists and policy wonks alone.
62 Scottish Fabians
LABOUR, EUROPE AND SCOTLAND
Some claim that as an independent country Scotland would sit at the
top table in the EU with real clout. On the whole, the evidence
suggests that small states suffer disadvantages not just by having
fewer votes in the Council but also in the lower shaping capacity in the
agenda setting and decision making stages of EU policy making.
Granted, some research suggests that EU legislation tends to be more
in line with small states' positions than not, but it has been suggested
that this is because they tend to line up with the most agreeable
position put forward by a large member state at the negotiation stage.
Of course, there are strategies to seek to address this such as regional
alliances and alliances with large member states but the level of
influence these can deliver is at best uncertain. In practice significant
EU measures are seldom adopted in the face of opposition from the
large EU member states. Even leaving aside the problem that an
independent Scotland is unlikely to be automatically allowed to join
the EU or if allowed that this may be on less good terms, going it
alone as a small state is surely a risk not worth taking.
Would it not then be far preferable for Scotland to have a louder voice
within the UK to articulate its concerns and assert its position? At the
moment, Scotland expresses itself through various channels.
Representation by MEPs and through the Committee of the Regions
are long established means of influence. In addition, since the
establishment of the Scottish Parliament, a memorandum of
understanding provides for the Scottish Government to be kept
informed of relevant EU developments, to feed into the policy making
process in relation to matters touching on devolved areas and to play a
role in Council meetings at which substantive discussion is expected
of matters likely to have a significant impact on their devolved
responsibilities. Other member states, by contrast, such as Austria
and Germany, oblige the federal level government to give
responsibility for matters within the exclusive competence of a sub-
state minister to that sub-state minister; and in Germany the Lnder
can challenge the federal government for acting or taking decisions
more appropriate to the Lnder. Of course, there are real challenges
involved in identifying which of the regions should send a
Scottish Fabians 63
representative and in identifying what position that representative
should adopt when speaking on behalf of the member state as a
whole. Particular difficulties arise in the UK because of the
asymmetrical nature of our devolved settlement. Nonetheless, other
countries have met these challenges so it is worth looking at our
arrangements afresh to see whether they are fit for purpose.
Procedural tweaks which help Scotlands position to be given the
weight it deserves are all well and good; but more important still is to
become a nation engaged with the EU, knowledgeable about what it
is up to and therefore able to influence its workings and outcomes. As
the Euro zone powers ahead towards greater integration, the UKs
influence on EU policy is inevitably reduced, at least in those areas
where the UK is in the slow lane. For the UK, the decision to stay out
of the Euro means taking a back seat as the Euro zone integrates its
financial 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 which
read repealing) social and employment law, and justice and home
affairs, robustly and without equivocation. Let's not forget that a
social dimension was not always a given but that without it free
movement and fair competition could not be a reality.
Just as Labour believes that the UK together constitutes more than the
sum of its parts, so too the EU together can achieve more than each
state alone. There will of course always be areas of compelling
national interest where a position which diverges from those of our EU
partners must be put forward, but how much more persuasive is that
position when this is the exception rather than norm. But there is a
stark difference between the Tories handbagging approach and one
which builds alliances with other EU members so as to be heard as a
credible voice of reason in the negotiation of EU budgets and policies.
We need to stop being defensive about the EU. We need to be clear
about what the EU can do for us, and what we can do for it. We need
to state clearly and unequivocally that there is no question of the UK
leaving the EU under a Labour government. Our movement is an
64 Scottish Fabians
LABOUR, EUROPE AND SCOTLAND
internationalist one, and an EU which embraces cultural difference and
couples social cohesion with economic advancement is exactly what
we should be all about. Furthermore a belief that the EU has an
important role to play in our legislative and democratic make-up does
not conflict with a belief in devolving power to the lowest level where
that is the appropriate level for its exercise.
Scottish Fabians 65
A CHOCE BEIWEEN PROGRESS AND
DVSON
Margaret Curran MP
In the midst of the referendum debate, two unhelpful cleavages have
emerged that are damaging our national conversation. The first is the
idea that the primary choice of political identity for people involved in
Scottish politics is between nationalism and unionism. The second is
the manufactured conflict between a fictional London and
Edinburgh, between the UK and Scottish Parliaments, where one
institution is cast as the permanent enemy of Scotland, and the other
as our saviour.
At the expense of all other political divisions, this is the one that has
been cast as the central dividing line in Scottish politics. For those of us
who care deeply about Scotland and our countrys future, this should
be deeply worrying. And for those of us on the progressive side of
politics, it should concern us that the political discourse in Scotland is
dominated by a division that, logically, can lead to us closing our eyes
and ears to the real causes of and solutions to the social wrongs that
still blight our society.
My argument is this: that the pursuit of independence and nationalism
itself blinds the SNP to both the true causes of inequality and their
solutions. And in the pursuit of their goal they are willing to
accommodate ideas that are no longer appropriate for a society
struggling out of recession after the greatest crisis of capitalism in our
lifetimes. In tackling the SNP, we have to not only clearly define our
own goals, but also be clear about what the SNP represents and not
shirk in calling out nationalism as a concept in itself.
66 Scottish Fabians
A CHOICE BETWEEN PROGRESS AND DIVISION
The Nationalist Cul-de-Sac
In June of this year, Nicola Sturgeon made the accurate point that
there are more wealthy people in the South East of England than the
rest of the UK. Its a valid point, and one that has much to do with
high house prices and the presence of one of the largest city
economies in the world in that part of Britain. Its a point that Ed
Miliband had also made several times before, when trying to show
how the whole of the UK needed to be rebalanced away from the
south east.
For the SNP, however, the crude point being made was that rich
people in the South East of England were exploiting poor people in
Scotland. It was a point supported on the front page of a national
newspaper on the same weekend, which declared that London was
bleeding Scotland dry. It was a crude portrayal of the balance of
power and wealth across the UK.
It was also characteristic of the tactics of nationalist movements the
world over: establish the other, instil resentment and then wait for
people to make the connection youre trying to lead them to. Its the
same type of politics that gave Michael Howards Conservatives the
are you thinking what were thinking? election slogan of 2005.
And what this does to Scotland is to close down debate. If you believe
that your Scottish identity defines everything right through to your
political beliefs, and if you believe that being Scottish is enough to
secure positive social and economic outcomes, you inevitably close
your eyes and ears to the real problems affecting our nation. If you
believe the roots of all our economic, social and political ills come from
a force beyond our borders, we will never find the real answers to how
we build a better society.
So while the SNP frequently talk of inequalities between England and
Scotland, between London and Edinburgh, we hear little of the hard
reality of inequality inside Scotlands borders.
Scottish Fabians 67
Facing the Reality
Around the same time that the ONS published the data Nicola
Sturgeon pointed to in order to make her point about inequality, the
well-respected Fraser of Allander institute published the first overview
of economic inequality in Scotlands regions between 1997 and 2010.
1
The conclusions were stark. While the Scottish economy grew by
24.2% in real terms over this period, performance across Scotlands
regions varied significantly.
Five of Scotlands sub-regions performed more than 10% worse than
Scotland as a whole. The worst performing group Inverclyde, East
Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire was nearly 23% below the Scottish
average over that period (representing only 2% growth), while the
best was more than 23% higher. In the period between 2002 and
2010, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen grew and accounted for half
of all Scottish output.
In the UK as a whole, similar results from economic surveys of this
period are keeping politicians and economists awake at night as they
try to work out how they solve this public policy challenge and build a
balanced economy. But in the world of Scottish politics and public
policy where the key challenge set by the Nationalists is always to
compare ourselves with England these important nuances are
completely lost.
Narrow Nationalism vs One Nation Labour
But should this surprise us? Ask yourself when you last heard a senior
SNP politician really address inequality inside Scotland, and youll be
left wanting. Nationalism is a narrow creed and as Ian McWhirter has
pointed out, the SNP can try to call it something else, or dress their
politics up differently, but there is no getting away from the fact that
they are still Nationalists and they believe that being Scottish is enough
in itself to guarantee a better future. Compare Alex Salmonds
Nationalist vision to Ed Milibands 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
68 Scottish Fabians
A CHOICE BETWEEN PROGRESS AND DIVISION
the differences between Labours values and those of the SNP are
stark.
At the root of One Nation is the idea that all of us, wherever we are in
the UK, have a contribution to make to rebuild our economy, our
society and our politics. Its a vision that asks everyone to play their
part and doesnt see the borders between the UKs nations as an
obstacle 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 thats solidly grounded in the
reality of our world. Each day $4 trillion moves across international
borders.
2
The number of people not living in the country in which they
were born increased by close to 40% over the past twenty years.
3
And
in 2012, 6 billion people 87% of the worlds population carried a
mobile phone in their pocket.
4
This isnt a world crying out for more
borders its a world looking to work together, not break apart.
In our approach to the economy, One Nation Labour is also grounded
in the experiences of people the length and breadth of the UK who
can see from their own lives and their own communities that the
economy is not working in the way it should be. As Ed Miliband said in
February, the answer is not to believe in the ideal that wealth trickles
down and that a more unequal economy where a few people take
the proceeds can be a successful economy, but to grow an economy
made by the many, not just the few at the top.
Its an idea that most Scots would agree with, but not one that Alex
Salmond and the SNP are keen to adopt. Instead, cutting tax for the
biggest companies is still their preferred route to growing Scotlands
economy.
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
Scottish Fabians 69
Finally, devolution is an integral part of Labours One Nation approach.
Having everyone play their part means pushing power down to the
level that is most appropriate its only in that way that our
communities, towns and cities will be able to make change happen
around them. Unlike the SNP, our discussion is about power and not
powers; about how people can take control of their lives and their
communities, not which levers politicians at Westminster or Holyrood
will be able to pull.
One Nation Labours approach to devolution is about building on the
strong foundation we have inherited from the original devolution
settlement, looking forward to the new powers in 2016 and asking
what more we need to do. Its a discussion that starts with ends, not
means and addresses the fundamental question of how we make
Scotlands people more prosperous. What is clear, however, is that a
One Nation approach which puts collaboration and contribution at its
core will see both our governments at Westminster and Holyrood
working hand in hand, bringing to bear the full power of each
institution in the best interests of people in Scotland.
Over the next year, plenty of ink will be spilled and airtime exhausted
on the intricacies of our referendum. As progressives, interested and
engaged in debates about how we improve Scotland and the rest of
the world, we need to keep at the front of our minds that the battle
we fight is not just about the values and ideas in the independence
debate, but at the heart of our entire political cause.
This isnt just a debate between the SNP and Labour, between those
who would see us break apart and those of us who want the UK to
remain intact. It is an argument at a crucial time in our history when
the world is changing around us about whether the values we think
will see us through are progressive or nationalist. The stakes couldnt
be any higher.
70 Scottish Fabians
AFIERWORD
Iain Gray MSP
In a Scotland whose politics are dominated by the independence
question, sloppy clichs abound, and most of them are not true. On
the pro-independence side it is a given that those who do not share
their view have, ipso facto, no vision for Scotland or ambition for what
Scotland can be. In fact the Labour movement has been driven
precisely by the belief that we can make our society better, and the
determination that we will do so, from its very inception. That is as
true today as it ever was.
On our side of the independence debate, we accuse our opponents of
making the clearly absurd argument that removing Scotland from the
United 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 the
only country in the developed world to avoid their challenge
altogether. 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 ask
questions about the kind of Scotland they would like to see.
How much more important then, that Scottish Labour and the wider
movement of the Left demonstrate our vision and ambition for our
country by thrashing out our ideas for how that country should be
transformed. How urgent that the Fabians, whose role has always
been to challenge and drive forward the thinking of the movement
should play their part. How timely, then, this pamphlet and the
contributions it contains.
Trevor Davies et al describe graphically the morbid symptoms of our
time, a legacy of decades of politics and economics which has
increased division, fuelled alienation and damaged the relationships
which hold society together. They conclude with a challenge to the
Scottish Fabians 71
Scottish parliament to reach for its original ambition to turn this
around.
This is a common theme of these essays, that the Scottish parliament
has lost its own sense of direction. No one makes that case better
than Drew Smith who does not pull his punches in either allocating
blame, or suggesting how that institution, and those us privileged
enough to sit in it, can get ourselves back on track.
Richard Kerley makes the point that the Scottish parliament was
created as a Parliament for public services and that this is a mind-set
we need to change. Above all we need to be much more rigorous
about asking what the real, rather than imagined effects are of the
decisions that parliament takes, a difficult debate Johann Lamont has
already started. Catriona Munro reminds us that the devolved
parliament was meant to provide Scotland with a new and more
productive relationship with the European union, another aspiration of
its early days which we would do well to revisit.
Kezia Dugdale goes to the heart of the economic question which
defines our future, the disconnection between economic growth and
the opportunity it provides to the next generation to make a full and
fulfilling life for themselves and their families. She argues that it is not
enough to raise levels of skills in an economy increasingly built on
exploitative models of employment. We need to raise levels of
confidence, self belief and ambition, and support that with the means
to turn it into new forms of enterprise.
Kezia reflects another common thread in these essays. We need to
look for solutions in the strengths and potentials we already have, and
find ways to support them. Oxfam Scotland have done exactly that in
the development of their widely praised Humankind Index, developing
a powerful decision making tool through direct consultation with
those at the sharp end of economic decisions. Katherine Trebeck
and Francis Stuarts essay describes this important initiative, and having
participated recently in a public application of the process I can testify
to its power.
72 Scottish Fabians
AFTERWORD
Sarah Boyacks essay also takes us to the sharp end, where local
authorities struggle with shrinking resources to support their
communities without the luxury of distance parliamentarians enjoy.
This is a powerfully positive contribution because it provides examples
of how many local councils have fashioned highly imaginative and
successful responses to their communities needs in the most difficult
of circumstances. Sarahs argument that we should therefore support
local authorities to do more rather than constantly reduce their powers
and resources is a compelling one. It is supported by Margaret
Currans case, with stark statistical evidence to back it up, that the SNP
governments focus on Scotland and our relationship to the other
nations of the UK has blinded them to the corrosive inequalities
between the different parts of Scotland.
These essays add up to a telling account of the urgent need to
transform society, but also provide clear pointers as to the path we
should be advocating. They make the case that separation is not only
a distraction from this challenge of our generation, but an impediment
to turning division and alienation around. They show that our
devolved parliament can play a positive role in this transformation, but
to do so must rediscover its own ambitions and aspirations and
transform itself in order to change Scotland for the better.
Finally, every one of these essays is clear that we can find the strength
from 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 to
rediscover and apply our own core values of equality, community,
fairness, solidarity and social justice and use these as our guiding
principles.
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.
Scottish Fabians 73
WhuIs eexI from ScoIIsh Fubues?
We have an exciting programme of work planned for the coming year,
including:
The 19|09 seminar series
A 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 conference
Including contributions from a range of Labour affiliated
organisations and socialist societies.
Scottish Fabians Fringe at Scottish Labour conference
Always a thought-provoking and lively debate.
Local groups, student groups and lawyers network
Work will continue to support and develop our network of
groups across Scotland.
Another essay compilation and more publications
Continuing our facilitation of policy debate within the Labour
movement in Scotland.
Join Scottish Fabians today
Every member of the Fabian Society resident in Scotland is
automatically a member of Scottish Fabians. To join the Fabian
Society (standard rate 3 per month / unwaged 1.50 per month)
please visit www.fabians.org.uk/members/join.
AMBIONS FOR SCOILAND
Now iooos
/ now qonorolion o olilics
5cottish Fobions ore convinced of the need for fresh thinking to help
move 5cotlond beyond norrow constitutionol politics. We wont to
provide o plotform for o rodicol reossertion of 5cottish Lobour volues
ond the benefits they con bring to the 5cottish people.
With this collection of essoys we look to help form those volues in
new woys, with new energy, ond to provide signposts to future policy
directions.
We seek o 5cotlond where our conditions of life ore shoped by eoch
of us owning our own work, heolth, culture ond leorning; shoring
our common well-being, risks ond security; ond belonging fully to o
responsive democrocy.
We uphold the volues of devolution, which brought significont
porliomentory powers to our notion, ond seek to extend those
volues beyond porlioment, exploring new forms of common oction
to ploce powers in the honds of the mony, not the few.
Foreword by Iohonn Lomonl M5P
Allerword by loin Groy M5P
With contributions from 5oroh 8oyock M5F, Morgoret Curron MF,
Frofessor Trevor Dovies, Kezio Dugdole M5F, Corol Finloy, Mike
Freundenberg, Duncon Hothersoll, Doniel 1ohnson, Frofessor
kichord Kerley, Cotriono Munro, Moureen Fornell, Anos 5orwor MF,
Drew 5mith M5F, Froncis 5tuort, Kotherine Trebeck ond Diormid
Weir.
www.scollishlobions.org.uk

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Ambitions For Scotland PDF

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SARAH BOYACK MSP

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