Advocates of Scottish nationalism will not suffer for the want of a collection of themes and ideas when Nicola Sturgeon signals the start of a second referendum on independence. Many of them will be borrowed from the first campaign, dusted down and updated to take account of the passing of four or five years.
However, the moral impetus of the Nationalist campaign will, as it did in 2014, rest on ideas about fairness and equality. A low and steady drumbeat will resonate throughout the campaign. “England has lost its moral centre; so come to Scotland all who are weary and heavy-laden, and we will give you rest.” Hard Brexit, benefit cuts targeting the poor and vulnerable and a pernicious xenophobia built on persistent anti-immigration messages will all be cited in the case for de-coupling from a colder and less compassionate United Kingdom. Some of these will be more valid than others.
There remains a gap, though, between SNP rhetoric on social justice and its ability to provide it to the point where it begins to improve the lives of those most in need. This is not to say that there isn’t a desire by the SNP to make a difference in communities which have suffered the greatest social and health inequality.
Scotland spends more than one third of its entire budget on healthcare, while the first minister has staked her political reputation on the ability of the government she leads to bridge the educational attainment gap.
Despite the formation of think tanks and task forces and repeated pledges to learn from past mistakes, there are very few signs of lasting and sustainable improvement in these areas. Scottish government ministers are taught always to round off interviews where their records are being scrutinised with the following trite and meaningless phrase: “… however, we acknowledge that more needs to be done.” Waiting times, missed targets or another stiff bill for locums? “We’ve set up a task force to look into this, but we recognise that more needs to be done.”
The SNP has been governing Scotland for 10 years and is set fair for another 10 at least. In Yes Minister, when Sir Humphrey Appleby wanted to guide Jim Hacker away from anything risky, he would salute him for being “courageous”. In Westminster, “courage’” usually leads to perdition. In Scotland, the SNP’s high numbers give them a licence to be so.
Last week, it was announced that prison governors in England are to be made accountable for getting offenders off drugs, into jobs and learning English and maths under new legislation to tackle the prison crisis south of the border. This signals a new social contract between inmates and prisons and echoes what one English prison governor told me two years ago about a new philosophy being promoted by a group of enlightened governors.
This was aimed at bringing out the innate humanity of most offenders by inviting them, often for the first time in their lives, to be partners in their own rehabilitation plans. In Scotland, where we have one of the biggest jail populations in Europe and where we jail more women than any other European country, the SNP shamefully caved in to the thinking of the alt-right and deprived prisoners of the small redemption of the right to vote in the first independence referendum.
In England, the 2014 NHS Five Year Forward View not only identified a significant funding gap, but received praise despite its challenging, honest message for politicians about the state of the NHS and the significant funding challenge. In Scotland, where the NHS is more fondly regarded by the Holyrood government, there is, nevertheless, a reluctance to encourage and advance fresh thinking. When a new way of addressing an issue is being considered, it is done so arbitrarily. In the NHS, this has resulted in the top down imposition of unproven elective centres. We specialise in launching pilot schemes that become marooned on that big desert island where, along with that other great NHS speciality, specialist task forces, they disappear.
In a time of austerity, innovation in the public sector matters even more, and the Scottish government has been granted the time and the opportunity to deploy it. Smarter ways of working need to be found, such as shared administration, payroll and finance functions. However, the public service reform agenda is about much more than squeezing a few million pounds out of backroom functions – it’s about providing services for people rather than to people.
We need to instil a permanent revolution in the way our services are designed and delivered, with people as the focal point. They must have a real say in how services are designed and delivered in their communities.
The challenges surrounding health and care were highlighted recently in the black hole in the budgets for the new integrated joint boards. If the government really wants to make integration happen, councils and their NHS partners need to pool funding and work together to prevent problems and promote wellbeing, rather than reacting to health or social care issues.
In Glasgow, Scotland’s most important city and the one that drives its economy, there is a burning, generations-old need to tackle poverty and health inequality. The City Deal is a start, but will be rendered virtually meaningless without control over the welfare budget. The Glasgow City region (which extends to the Clyde Valley council areas) can’t be expected to tackle the endemic effects of poverty without being given control of all the available levers to do so. The ground war on poverty must enter a new phase; having all the levers of social policy in one place will enable a proper assault on economic and social poverty to be launched.
We can longer ignore the need for more urgent reform. Recent changes in public services in Scotland focused on structural and organisational change. We need a move towards a Scotland with a public sector that enables people to take the lead. The days of centralised local authorities operating in their head offices are numbered.
When Nicola Sturgeon fires the starting gun on a second independence referendum, this must be her manifesto for a new Scotland.
