As Holyrood prepares to reopen after recess it’s time to remember Scotland’s promise - Fiona Duncan

It was only three months ago that libraries, community spaces and schools were figuring out how to facilitate Covid-19 safe voting in the Scottish elections. There were queues and delays, but over a year into the pandemic, we were all familiar with masks and one-way systems. What would have felt strange only two years back, had become part of daily life.

Of the 129 MSPs elected, more than 40 are new, bringing experience from business, health, education, justice, renewables and the media - as well as reasons to celebrate Scotland’s diversity. Plus, there are some well-kent political faces. They will have seen and felt the impact of COVID-19 on their families, communities and work - and will play a vital role in Scotland’s recovery, making it the best country it can be for everyone living, working and growing up here. This is both a huge privilege and a heavy responsibility.

As with any new job, finding your feet (and the nearest toilet) is the first task. Scotland’s new MSPs will be organising offices, recruiting teams and for those new to parliament, ensuring they have a grip of what happens where, how and when. Once ‘in session’, there will be a cacophony of competing demands and pressures. Grappling with proposals for seismic changes, like whether to create a single National Care Service, will require cool heads, careful thought and consideration of unintended – and intended – consequences.

Rebuilding Scotland post-pandemic can only be done by using everything we now know about what we must do and everything we’ve learned about what we can do.

As well as further exposing inequalities, COVID-19 highlighted needless bureaucracies that had always existed but previously been less visible – or easier to ignore. It also revealed that issues, formerly considered so big and complex as to be unsolvable, could, in fact be solved, given the right circumstances and motivation.

On 5th February 2020 - when worries about COVID-19 were emerging and the first lockdown more than a month away – the Independent Care Review published its conclusions. Driven by and anchored in the stories and experiences of thousands of people with care experience, this made clear the urgent, long overdue change required to Scotland’s ‘care system’. On that day, The First Minister, Scottish Parliament and people and organisations across Scotland made a promise. A promise to Scotland’s children and families to provide support where and when needed, so they can stay together wherever safe to do so. A promise that all children, and especially the children Scotland has taken responsibility to care for, will grow up loved, safe and respected so they realise their full potential.

COVID-19 makes keeping the promise even more vital. Just as it requires hard work from almost every sector across Scotland, it also requires dedicated leadership from those at the heart of democracy. There is no political impediment - cross-party support at the time the conclusions were published was reiterated in the pre-election party manifestos. This commitment must continue. Keeping the promise requires unity, cooperation and an alliance of talents. As MSPs plan their return to parliament at the end of August, regardless of party, keeping that promise must be foremost in their minds.

Fiona Duncan, Chair of The Promise Scotland