Scotland is governed by too much talk, too little action – Scottish Labour should take note - Brian Wilson

Even I was startled to learn from the researches of ‘Our Scottish Future’ that since Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister, the Scottish Government has published 529 strategy papers and 669 consultations.

Some of them must have been necessary and relevant but the sheer numbers feed into a perception confirmed by anyone who observes the workings of the Scottish

Government – so much talk, so little to show for it. An avalanche of wasted paper and other people’s time.

Our Scottish Future’s report suggests an obsession with announcements rather than outcomes. “Swollen” numbers of Ministers demand “something new to announce rather than finishing and delivering what’s already there”. So let’s have another consultation, followed by a strategy paper, then … nothing much.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar should not just bask in the findings of the Our Scottish Future report but get to work on mapping out how devolved government could function more effectively under his tenure, writes Brian Wilson. PIC: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Amidst this froth of activity, hard facts of greater significance tend to get overlooked. A fundamental one is that we have 25 per cent more per head of population than England to spend on public services. Meaningful debate should be about value for money, which is a political question rather than a constitutional one.

Until that distinction is recognised, Scotland remains bogged down in the wrong argument. We suffer from what Our Scottish Future describes as a “perma-campaign over the constitution” in which “every decision and announcement has been viewed through an electoral and constitutional lens”.

It continued: “There is a tendency to announce strategies and consultations rather than solid plans for action – on average, there has been more than one strategy and more than one consultation announced every single week for the past decade. This is announcing, not governing”.

Our Scottish Future is associated with Gordon Brown but that does not make its conclusions dismissible by any political force within Scotland. Indeed, its findings are particularly relevant for the SNP at this particular juncture.

The Scottish electorate, at an accelerating rate, seems to have looked around them and cottoned onto the abysmal quality of devolved government. It is no longer buying into the Westminster blame game. They are equally well aware of a Tory government’s deficiencies but these, they have finally decided, do not exonerate what goes on in Edinburgh.

Our more thoughtful Nationalists always recognised that good devolved government might be the most effective recruiting sergeant to their longer term cause. It was equally possible that voters would ultimately draw the opposite conclusion but at least Scotland would benefit in the meantime.

Alex Salmond, in his better days, just about got that. Nicola Sturgeon never came close. She ran government in exactly the way Our Scottish Future describes - by gimmick and headline; by reliance on short memories; by hoarding power and by permanent manoeuvres to drive wedges between Scottish and UK governments.

They really were nine wasted years.

Scottish Labour should read this report carefully and, rather than merely basking in its conclusions, start thinking about how it would do things differently. Over the next 30 months, they need to spell out not only individual policies but also a real sense of change about what devolution could deliver.

They should commit to a Comprehensive Spending Review in which every nook and cranny of Scottish Government expenditure is explored. That means challenging rather than inheriting each silo of current spending against the measure of clearly defined priorities.

Next, they should develop a clear commitment to devolution as a concept that does not stop at Edinburgh. There are many areas of policy and spending where decisions are best made at local level. Labour should position itself as the liberators of decentralisation just as surely as the SNP has become the enforcer of centralisation.

Our Scottish Future identified the “failure to collaborate across the UK” so that “things best done in consort end up being done apart, less effectively and less efficiently”. This is a piece of stupidity that Labour should guarantee to reverse on the simple premise that it makes sense to seek co-operation rather than conflict and differentiation.

It seems likely – but not certain - that, in advance of the next Holyrood elections, Labour will have taken over at Westminster. This would create the strongest possible selling point for having two governments of the same political hue, working together for shared objectives in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

But the principle of co-operation should transcend party politics. We are currently in the ridiculous situation where the UK Government – with plenty justification – runs its own spending programmes in Scotland because there was no trust that the Scottish Government would work collaboratively or even acknowledge its role.

The result is that all over Scotland, councils and third sector organisations are forced down the route of multiple applications to innumerable funds, each with differing criteria and timescales. It is an offensive waste of time and resources which could be resolved by a straightforward merging of effort and money.

That does not require two governments of the same political complexion. It just demands mutual respect and appreciation that what matters are end results rather than stupid arguments about which flag or whose name is on the press release. Yet that is what has happened through devolution in the wrong hands.

The Our Scottish Future report highlights the nonsensical fact that the Scottish Government now has 30 Ministers, up from 18 in Salmond’s day. My sympathy is for the civil servants who have to make them feel occupied by great affairs of state when the truth is that a dozen competent politicians would run a far more effective government with time to spare.

Labour has to signal the prospect of real change by using the tools of devolution at all levels to make it work, with no other agenda. Overhauling the apparatus of how government works will be a necessary component of that message, and it’s time to start thinking about it.

.