What is effective government?

This post (1) summarises my oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament Finance and Public Administration Committee Inquiry ‘Public Administration – Effective Scottish Government decision-making’, and (2) introduces my report ‘What is effective government?’. While I am the committee’s adviser on this inquiry, the report and this post represent my thoughts (not those of committee members).

My overall impression, of the 28 submissions to the committee, is that they inform a very familiar two-part story:

1. There should be clearly defined steps or stages to making decisions, and governments should make use of well-established, rigorous, decision-making tools (the call for systematic policymaking in theory)
2. They identify their generally disappointing experiences of unfulfilled reforms and implementation gaps (the absence of systematic policymaking in practice)

In that context, it is worth asking:

1. Are these problems specific to Scottish Government (right now), or are they more general and systemic?
2. Can we separate specific expectations for Scottish Government from more general expectations about policymaking?

Why these problems are general and systemic

My report identifies two main reasons to expect the same problems in any government (based on theories and studies of policymaking).

First, there is always a gap between simple and idealised models of systematic policymaking and real-world policy processes. We can tell this story as follows:

• Policymakers do not (a) fully understand the problems they face, or (b) control the complex policymaking systems in which they engage.
• They need to be pragmatic (to recognise these limits) but also tell a story of being in charge (to reflect an electoral imperative).
• This imperative to be pragmatic but project central government control (as part of a story of governing competence) is relatively strong in Westminster systems.

Second, governments pursue a large number of worthy ‘effective government’ principles, which seem fine in isolation (and when expressed vaguely), but are contradictory when combined (and turned into concrete measures). In my report, I listed seven principles which map (somewhat) onto the committee’s list of topics:

1. Hold to account the people and organisations responsible for policy.

2. Anticipate and prevent policy problems rather than react to crisis.

3. Avoid power hoarding at the ‘centre’. Co-produce policy with citizens.

4. Ensure policy coherence and policymaking integration.

5. Foster evidence-informed policymaking.

6. Mainstream equity, fairness, or justice across all policy.

7. Ensure that public services deliver public value.

For example, the primacy of national elections concentrates power in the centre, fosters short-term thinking, biases evidence-gathering towards experts, limits consensus seeking, and reduces incentives to learn.

The Scottish Government is no exception to the general rule

This general picture is familiar to students of public policy in Scotland, where a fixation with Scottish Parliament elections, as the main vehicle for accountability, overshadows other aims such as more preventive, decentralised, and co-produced policy processes.

There is also a specific Scottish story, such as how the Scottish Government might pursue (1) policy coherence (for example, via the National Performance Framework) and, (2) co-produced, integrated, and equitable ‘public value’ approaches (via the Scottish model of government or Scottish approach to policymaking).

However, this story has the same ending as many others, recounting a gap between aspiration and reality, followed by a tendency to retell the fictional story rather than focus on what governments can actually do. The result is a lost opportunity to generate new knowledge of – and thoughtful reflection on – what exactly a government does  (and if it has policy capacity). It fuels a cycle of disappointment and reinvention rather than proper investigation.

What can the Scottish Government learn?

My report identifies some examples of comparable places where some elements of government are worth examining, including:

1. Welsh government and Welsh Centre for Public Policy – on the systematic use of external evidence for policy.
2. New Zealand Policy Project – on the pursuit of a formalised and systematic approach to giving good policy advice to ministers.
3. Annex A also lists some possibilities regarding international benchmarks and performance indicators.

It is also essential for the Scottish Government to learn from its own experiences as part of a process of continuous development, although a focus on other governments can often take the heat out of debate (since a focus on Scottish policy success is inevitably partisan).

In each case, what would be the likelihood of learning, and about what? My final remark was to suggest that (1) learning about specific initiatives (such as to improve evidence and advice to minsters), is very limited without (2) situating that learning in a much wider systemic perspective.

Why is there high support for, but low likelihood of, drug consumption rooms in Scotland?

This is my interpretation of this new article:

James Nicholls, Wulf Livingston, Andy Perkins, Beth Cairns, Rebecca Foster, Kirsten M. A. Trayner, Harry R. Sumnall, Tracey Price, Paul Cairney, Josh Dumbrell, and Tessa Parkes (2022) ‘Drug Consumption Rooms and Public Health Policy: Perspectives of Scottish Strategic Decision-Makers’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(11), 6575; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19116575

Q: if stakeholders in Scotland express high support for drug consumption rooms, and many policymakers in Scotland seem sympathetic, why is there so little prospect of policy change?

My summary of the article’s answer is as follows:

1. Although stakeholders support DCRs almost unanimously, they do not support them energetically.

They see this solution as one part of a much larger package rather than a magic bullet. They are not sure of the cost-effectiveness in relation to other solutions, and can envisage some potential users not using them.

The existing evidence on their effectiveness is not persuasive for people who (1) adhere to a hierarchy of evidence which prioritizes evidence from randomized control trials or (2) advocate alternative ways to use evidence.

There are competing ways to frame this policy solution. It suggests that there are some unresolved issues among stakeholders which have not yet come to the fore (since the lack of need to implement something specific reduces the need to engage with a more concrete problem definition).

2. A common way to deal with such uncertainty in Scotland is to use ‘improvement science’ or the ‘improvement method’.

This method invites local policymakers and practitioners to try out new solutions, work with stakeholders and service users during delivery, reflect on the results, and use this learning to design the next iteration. This is a pragmatic, small-scale, approach that appeals to the (small-c conservative) Scottish Government, which uses pilots to delay major policy changes, and is keen on its image as not too centralist and quite collaboration minded.

3. This approach is not politically feasible in this case.

Some factors suggest that the general argument has almost been won, including positive informal feedback from policymakers, and increasingly sympathetic media coverage (albeit using problematic ways to describe drug use).

However, this level of support is not enough to support experimentation. Drug consumption rooms would need a far stronger steer from the Scottish Government.

In this case, it can’t experiment now and decide later. It needs to make a strong choice (with inevitable negative blowback) and stay the course, knowing that one failed political experiment could set back progress for years.

4. The multi-level policymaking system is not conducive to overcoming these obstacles.

The issue of drugs policy is often described as a public health – and therefore devolved – issue politically (and in policy circles)

However, the legal/ formal division of responsibilities suggests that UK government consent is necessary and not forthcoming.

It is possible that the Scottish Government could take a chance and act alone. Indeed, the example of smoking in public places showed that it shifted its position after a slow start (it described the issue as reserved to the UK took charge of its own legislation, albeit with UK support).

However, the Scottish Government seems unwilling to take that chance, partly because it has been stung by legal challenges in other areas, and is reluctant to engage in more of the same (see minimum unit pricing for alcohol).

Local policymakers could experiment on their own, but they won’t do it without proper authority from a central government.

This experience is part of a more general issue: people may describe multi-level policymaking as a source of venues for experimentation (‘laboratories of democracy’) to encourage policy learning and collaboration. However, this case, and cases like fracking, show that they can actually be sites of multiple veto points and multi-level reluctance.

If so, the remaining question for reflection is: what would it take to overcome these obstacles? The election of a Labour UK government? Scottish independence? Or, is there some other way to make it happen in the current context?

See also:

What does it take to turn scientific evidence into policy? Lessons for illegal drugs from tobacco

Drug deaths are rising and overdose prevention centres save lives, so why is the UK unwilling to introduce them?

Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol

By James Nicholls and Paul Cairney, for the University of Stirling MPH and MPP programmes.

There are strong links between the study of public health and public policy. For example, public health scholars often draw on policy theories to help explain (often low amounts of) policy change to foster population health or reduce health inequalities. Studies include a general focus on public health strategies (such as HiAP) or specific policy instruments (such as a ban on smoking in public places). While public health scholars may seek to evaluate or influence policy, policy theories tend to focus on explaining processes and outcomes.

To demonstrate these links, we present:

1. A long-read blog post to (a) use an initial description of a key alcohol policy instrument (minimum unit pricing, adopted by the Scottish Government but not the UK Government) to (b) describe the application of policy concepts and theories and reflect on the empirical and practical implications. We then added some examples of further reading.
2. A 45 minute podcast to describe and explain these developments (click below or scroll to the end)

Minimum Unit Pricing in Scotland: background and development

Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol was introduced in Scotland in 2018. In 2012, the UK Government had also announced plans to introduce MUP, but within a year dopped the policy following intense industry pressure. What do these two journeys tell us about policy processes?

When MUP was first proposed by Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems in 2007, it was a novel policy idea. Public health advocates had long argued that raising the price of alcohol could help tackle harmful consumption. However, conventional tax increases were not always passed onto consumers, so would not necessarily raise prices in the shops (and the Scottish Government did not have such taxation powers). MUP appeared to present a neat solution to this problem. It quickly became a prominent policy goal of public health advocates in Scotland and across the UK, while gaining increasing attention, and support, from the global alcohol policy community.

In 2008, the UK Minister for Health, Dawn Primarolo, had commissioned researchers at the University of Sheffield to look into links between alcohol pricing and harm. The Sheffield team developed economic models to analysis the predicted impact of different systems. MUP was included, and the ‘Sheffield Model’ would go on to play a decisive role in developing the case for the policy.

What problem would MUP help to solve?

Descriptions of the policy problem often differed in relation to each government. In the mid-2000s, alcohol harm had become a political problem for the UK government. Increasing consumption, alongside changes to the night-time economy, had started to gain widespread media attention. In 2004, just as a major liberalisation of the licensing system was underway in England, news stories began documenting the apparent horrors of ‘Binge Britain’: focusing on public drunkenness and disorder, but also growing rates of liver disease and alcohol-related hospital admissions.

In 2004, influential papers such as the Daily Mail began to target New Labour alcohol policy

Politicians began to respond, and the issue became especially useful for the Conservatives who were developing a narrative that Britain was ‘broken’ under New Labour. Labour’s liberalising reforms of alcohol licensing could conveniently be linked to this political framing. The newly formed Alcohol Health Alliance, a coalition set up under the leadership of Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, was also putting pressure on the UK Government to introduce stricter controls. In Scotland, while much of the debate on alcohol focused on crime and disorder, Scottish advocates were focused on framing the problem as one of public health. Emerging evidence showed that Scotland had dramatically higher rates of alcohol-related illness and death than the rest of Europe – a situation strikingly captured in a chart published in the Lancet.

Source: Leon, D. and McCambridge, J. (2006). Liver cirrhosis mortality rates in Britain from 1950 to 2002: an analysis of routine data. Lancet 367

The notion that Scotland faced an especially acute public health problem with alcohol was supported by key figures in the increasingly powerful Scottish National Party (in government since 2007), which, around this time, had developed working relationships with Alcohol Focus Scotland and other advocacy groups.

What happened next?

The SNP first announced that it would support MUP in 2008, but it did not implement this change until 2018. There are two key reasons for the delay:

1. Its minority government did not achieve enough parliamentary support to pass legislation. It then formed a majority government in 2011, and its legislation to bring MUP into law was passed in 2012.  
2. Court action took years to resolve. The alcohol industry, which is historically powerful in Scotland, was vehemently opposed. A coalition of industry bodies, led by the Scotch Whisky Association, took the Scottish Government to court in an attempt to prove the policy was illegal. Ultimately, this process would take years, and conclude in rulings by the European Court of Justice (2016), Scottish Court of Session Inner House (2016), and UK Supreme Court (2017) which found in favour of the Scottish Government.

In England, to the surprise of many people, the Coalition Government announced in March 2012 that it too would introduce MUP, specifically to reduce binge drinking and public disorder. This different framing was potentially problematic, however, since the available evidence suggested (and subsequent evaluation has confirmed) that MUP would have only a small impact on crime. Nonetheless, health advocates were happy,  with one stating that ‘I do not mind too much how it was framed. What I mind about is how it measures up’.

Once again, the alcohol industry swung into action, launching a campaign led by the Wine and Spirits Trade Association, asking ‘Why should moderate drinkers pay more?’

This public campaign was accompanied by intense behind-the-scenes lobbying, aided by the fact that the leadership of industry groups had close ties to Government and that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Beer had the largest membership of any APPG in Westminster. The industry campaign made much of the fact there was little evidence to suggest MUP would reduce crime, but also argued strongly that the modelling produced by Sheffield University was not valid evidence in the first place. A year after the adopting the policy, the UK Government announced a U-turn and MUP was dropped.

How can we use policy theories and concepts to interpret these dynamics?

Here are some examples of using policy theories and concepts as a lens to interpret these developments.

1. What was the impact of evidence in the case for policy change?

While public health researchers often expect (or at least promote) ‘evidence based’ policymaking, insights from research identify three main reasons why policymakers do not make evidence-based choices:

First, many political actors (including policymakers) have many different ideas about what counts as good evidence.

The assessment, promotion, and use of evidence is highly contested, and never speaks for itself.

Second, policymakers have to ignore almost all evidence to make choices.

They address ‘bounded rationality’ by using two cognitive shortcuts: ‘rational’ measures set goals and identify trusted sources, while ‘irrational’ measures use gut instinct, emotions, and firmly held beliefs.

Third, policymakers do not control the policy process.

There is no centralised and orderly policy cycle. Rather, policymaking involves policymakers and influencers spread across many authoritative ‘venues’, with each venue having its own rules, networks, and ways of thinking.

In that context, policy theories identify the importance of contestation between policy actors, and describe the development of policy problems, and how evidence fits in. Approaches include:

The study of framing

The acceptability of a policy solution will often depend on how the problem is described. Policymakers use evidence to reduce uncertainty, or a lack of information around problems and how to solve them. However, politics is about exercising power to reduce ambiguity, or the ability to interpret the same problem in different ways.

By suggesting MUP would solve problems around crime, the UK Government made it easier for opponents to claim the policy wasn’t evidence-based. In Scotland, policymakers and advocates focused on health, where the evidence was stronger. In addition, the SNP’s approach fitted within a wider political independence frame, in which more autonomy meant more innovation.

The Narrative Policy Framework

Policy actors tell stories to appeal to the beliefs (or exploit the cognitive shortcuts) of their audiences. A narrative contains a setting (the policy problem), characters (such as the villain who caused it, or the victim of its effects), plot (e.g. a heroic journey to solve the problem), and moral (e.g. the solution to the problem).

Supporters of MUP tended to tell the story that there was an urgent public health  crisis, caused largely by the alcohol industry, and with many victims, but that higher alcohol prices pointed to one way out of this hole. Meanwhile opponents told the story of an overbearing ‘nanny state’, whose victims – ordinary, moderate drinkers – should be left alone by government.

Social Construction and Policy Design

Policymakers make strategic and emotional choices, to identify ‘good’ populations deserving of government help, and ‘bad’ populations deserving punishment or little help. These judgements inform policy design (government policies and practices) and provide positive or dispiriting signals to citizens.

For example, opponents of MUP rejected the idea that alcohol harms existed throughout the population. They focused instead on dividing the majority of moderate drinkers from irresponsible minority of binge drinkers, suggesting that MUP would harm the former more than help the latter.

Multi-centric policymaking

This competition to frame policy problems takes place in political systems that contain many ‘centres’, or venues for authoritative choice. Some diffusion of power is by choice, such as to share responsibilities with devolved and local governments. Some is by necessity, since policymakers can only pay attention to a small proportion of their responsibilities, and delegate the rest to unelected actors such as civil servants and public bodies (who often rely on interest groups to process policy).

For example, ‘alcohol policy’ is really a collection of instruments made or influenced by many bodies, including (until Brexit) European organisations deciding on the legality of MUP, UK and Scottish governments, as well as local governments responsible for alcohol licensing. In Scotland, this delegation of powers worked in favour of MUP, since Alcohol Focus Scotland were funded by the Scottish Government to help deliver some of their alcohol policy goals, and giving them more privileged access than would otherwise have been the case.

The role of evidence in MUP

In the case of MUP, similar evidence was available and communicated to policymakers, but used and interpreted differently, in different centres, by the politicians who favoured or opposed MUP.

In Scotland, the promotion, use of, and receptivity to research evidence – on the size of the problem and potential benefit of a new solution – played a key role in increasing political momentum. The forms of evidence were complimentary. The ‘hard’ science on a potentially effective solution seemed authoritative (although few understood the details), and was preceded by easily communicated and digested evidence on a concrete problem:

1. There was compelling evidence of a public health problem put forward by a well-organised ‘advocacy coalition’ (see below) which focused clearly on health harms. In government, there was strong attention to this evidence, such as the Lancet chart which one civil servant described as ‘look[ing] like the north face of the Eiger’. There were also influential ‘champions’ in Government willing to frame action as supporting the national wellbeing.
2. Reports from Sheffield University appeared to provide robust evidence that MUP could reduce harm, and advocacy was supported by research from Canada which suggested that similar policies there had been successful elsewhere.

Advocacy in England was also well-organised and influential, but was dealing with a larger – and less supportive – Government machine, and the dominant political frame for alcohol harms remained crime and disorder rather than health.

Debates on MUP modelling exemplify these differences in evidence communication and use. Those in favour appealed to econometric models, but sometimes simplifying their complexity and blurring the distinction between projected outcomes and proof of efficacy. Opponents went the other way and dismissed the modelling as mere speculation. What is striking is the extent to which an incredibly complex, and often poorly understand, set of econometric models – and the ’Sheffield Model’ in particular – came to occupy centre stage in a national policy debate. Katikireddi and colleagues talked about this as an example of evidence as rhetoric:

1. Support became less about engagement with  the econometric modelling, and more an indicator of general concern about alcohol harm and the power of the industry.
2. Scepticism was often viewed as the ‘industry position’, and an indicator of scepticism towards public health policy more broadly.

2. Who influences policy change?

Advocacy plays a key role in alcohol policy, with industry and other actors competing with public health groups to define and solve alcohol policy problems. It prompts our attention to policy networks, or the actors who make and influence policy.

According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework:

People engage in politics to turn their beliefs into policy. They form advocacy coalitions with people who share their beliefs, and compete with other coalitions. The action takes place within a subsystem devoted to a policy issue, and a wider policymaking process that provides constraints and opportunities to coalitions. Beliefs about how to interpret policy problems act as a glue to bind actors together within coalitions. If the policy issue is technical and humdrum, there may be room for routine cooperation. If the issue is highly charged, then people romanticise their own cause and demonise their opponents.

MUP became a highly charged focus of contestation between a coalition of public health advocates, who saw themselves as fighting for the wellbeing of the wider community (and who believed fundamentally that government had a duty to promote population health), and a coalition of industry actors who were defending their commercial interests, while depicting public health policies as illiberal and unfair.

3. Was there a ‘window of opportunity’ for MUP?

Policy theories – including Punctuated Equilibrium Theory – describe a tendency for policy change to be minor in most cases and major in few. Paradigmatic policy change is rare and may take place over decades, as in the case of UK tobacco control where many different policy instruments changed from the 1980s. Therefore, a major change in one instrument could represent a sea-change overall or a modest adjustment to the overall approach.

Multiple Streams Analysis is a popular way to describe the adoption of a new policy solution such as MUP. It describes disorderly policymaking, in which attention to a policy problem does not produce the inevitable development, implementation, and evaluation of solutions. Rather, these ‘stages’ should be seen as separate ‘streams’.  A ‘window of opportunity’ for policy change occurs when the three ‘streams’ come together:

• Problem stream. There is high attention to one way to define a policy problem.
• Policy stream. A technically and politically feasible solution already exists (and is often pushed by a ‘policy entrepreneur’ with the resources and networks to exploit opportunities).
• Politics stream. Policymakers have the motive and opportunity to choose that solution.

However, these windows open and close, often quickly, and often without producing policy change.

This approach can help to interpret different developments in relation to Scottish and UK governments:

Problem stream

• The Scottish Government paid high attention to public health crises, including the role of high alcohol consumption.
• The UK government paid often-high attention to alcohol’s role in crime and anti-social behaviour (‘Binge Britain’ and ‘Broken Britain’)

Policy stream

• In Scotland, MUP connected strongly to the dominant framing, offering a technically feasible solution that became politically feasible in 2011.
• The UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s made a surprising bid to adopt MUP in 2012, but ministers were divided on its technical feasibility (to address the problem they described) and its political feasibility seemed to be more about distracting from other crises than public health.

Politics stream

• The Scottish Government was highly motivated to adopt MUP. MUP was a flagship policy for the SNP; an opportunity to prove its independent credentials, and to be seen to address a national public health problem. It had the opportunity from 2011, then faced interest group opposition that delayed implementation.
• The Coalition Government was ideologically more committed to defending commercial interests, and to framing alcohol harms as one of individual (rather than corporate) responsibility. It took less than a year for the alcohol industry to successfully push for a UK government U-turn.

As a result, MUP became policy (eventually) in Scotland, but the window closed (without resolution) in England.

Further Reading

Nicholls, J. and Greenaway, J. (2015) ‘What is the problem?: Evidence, politics and alcohol policy in England and Wales, 2010–2014’, Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 22.2  https://doi.org/10.3109/09687637.2014.993923

Butler, S., Elmeland, K., Nicholls, J. and Thom, B. (2017) Alcohol, power and public health: a comparative study of alcohol policy. Routledge.

Fitzgerald, N. and Angus, C. (2015) Four nations: how evidence–based are alcohol policies and programmes across the UK?

Holden, C. and Hawkins, B. (2013) ‘Whisky gloss’: the alcohol industry, devolution and policy communities in Scotland. Public Policy and Administration, 28(3), pp.253-273.

Paul Cairney and Donley Studlar (2014) ‘Public Health Policy in the United Kingdom: After the War on Tobacco, Is a War on Alcohol Brewing?’ World Medical and Health Policy, 6, 3, 308-323 PDF

Niamh Fitzgerald and Paul Cairney (2022) ‘National objectives, local policymaking: public health efforts to translate national legislation into local policy in Scottish alcohol licensing’, Evidence and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16397418342227, PDF

Podcast

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Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol – Understanding Public Policy (in 1000 and 500 words)

By James Nicholls and Paul Cairney, for the University of Stirling MPH and MPP programmes. There are strong links between the study of public health and public policy. For example, public health scholars often draw on policy theories to help explain (often low amounts of) policy change to foster population health or reduce health inequalities. Studies include a general focus on public health strategies (such as HiAP) or specific policy instruments (such as a ban on smoking in public places). While public health scholars may seek to evaluate or influence policy, policy theories tend to focus on explaining processes and outcomes,. To demonstrate these links, we present this podcast and blog post to (1) use an initial description of a key alcohol policy instrument (minimum unit pricing in Scotland) to (2) describe the application of policy concepts and theories and reflect on the empirical and practical implications.  Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol | Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy (wordpress.com)

1. Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol 47:09
2. Policy in 500 Words: policymaking environments and their consequences 11:47
3. Policy in 500 Words: bounded rationality and its consequences 18:39
4. Policy in 500 Words: evolutionary theory 51:09
5. Policy in 500 Words: The Advocacy Coalition Framework 33:19

The COVID-19 exams fiasco across the UK: why did policymaking go so wrong?

This post first appeared on the LSE British Politics and Policy blog, and it summarises our new article: Sean Kippin and Paul Cairney (2021) ‘The COVID-19 exams fiasco across the UK: four nations and two windows of opportunity’, British Politics, PDF & Annex. The focus on inequalities of attainment is part of the IMAJINE project on spatial justice and territorial inequalities.

In the summer of 2020, after cancelling exams, the UK and devolved governments sought teacher estimates on students’ grades, but supported an algorithm to standardise the results. When the results produced a public outcry over unfair consequences, they initially defended their decision but reverted quickly to teacher assessment. These experiences, argue Sean Kippin and Paul Cairney, highlight the confluence of events and choices in which an imperfect and rejected policy solution became a ‘lifeline’ for four beleaguered governments. 

In 2020, the UK and devolved governments performed a ‘U-turn’ on their COVID-19 school exams replacement policies. The experience was embarrassing for education ministers and damaging to students. There are significant differences between (and often within) the four nations in terms of the structure, timing, weight, and relationship between the different examinations. However, in general, the A-level (England, Northern Ireland, Wales) and Higher/ Advanced Higher (Scotland) examinations have similar policy implications, dictating entry to further and higher education, and influencing employment opportunities. The Priestley review, commissioned by the Scottish Government after their U-turn, described this as an ‘impossible task’.

Initially, each government defined the new policy problem in relation to the need to ‘credibly’ replicate the purpose of exams to allow students to progress to tertiary education or employment. All four quickly announced their intentions to allocate in some form grades to students, rather than replace the assessments with, for example, remote examinations. However, mindful of the long-term credibility of the examinations system and of ensuring fairness, each government opted to maintain the qualifications and seek a similar distribution of grades to previous years. A key consideration was that UK universities accept large numbers of students from across the UK.

One potential solution open to policymakers was to rely solely on teacher grading (CAG). CAGs are ‘based on a range of evidence including mock exams, non-exam assessment, homework assignments and any other record of student performance over the course of study’. Potential problems included the risk of high variation and discrepancies between different centres, the potential overload of the higher education system, and the tendency for teacher predicted grades to reward already privileged students and punish disabled, non-white, and economically deprived children.

A second option was to take CAGs as a starting point, then use an algorithm to produce ‘standardisation’, which was potentially attractive to each government as it allowed students to complete secondary education and to progress to the next level in similar ways to previous (and future) cohorts. Further, an emphasis on the technical nature of this standardisation, with qualifications agencies taking the lead in designing the process by which grades would be allocated, and opting not share the details of its algorithm were a key part of its (temporary) viability. Each government then made similar claims when defending the problem and selecting the solution. Yet this approach reduced both the debate on the unequal impact of this process on students, and the chance for other experts to examine if the algorithm would produce the desired effect. Policymakers in all four governments assured students that the grading would be accurate and fair, with teacher discretion playing a large role in the calculation of grades.

To these governments, it appeared at first that they had found a fair and efficient (or at least defendable) way to allocate grades, and public opinion did not respond negatively to its announcement. However, these appearances proved to be profoundly deceptive and vanished on each day of each exam result. The Scottish national mood shifted so intensely that, after a few days, pursuing standardisation no longer seemed politically feasible. The intense criticism centred on the unequal level of reductions of grades after standardisation, rather than the unequal overall rise in grade performance after teacher assessment and standardisation (which advantaged poorer students).

Despite some recognition that similar problems were afoot elsewhere, this shift of problem definition did not happen in the rest of the UK until (a) their published exam results highlighted similar problems regarding the role of previous school performance on standardised results, and (b) the Scottish Government had already changed course. Upon the release of grades outside Scotland, it became clear that downgrades were also concentrated in more deprived areas. For instance, in Wales, 42% of students saw their A-Level results lowered from their Centre Assessed Grades, with the figure close to a third for Northern Ireland.

Each government thus faced similar choices between defending the original system by challenging the emerging consensus around its apparent unfairness; modifying the system by changing the appeal system; or abandoning it altogether and reverting to solely teacher assessed grades. Ultimately, all three governments followed the same path. Initially, they opted to defend their original policy choice. However, by 17 August, the UK, Welsh, and Northern education secretaries announced (separately) that examination grades would be based solely on CAGs – unless the standardisation process had generated a higher grade (students would receive whichever was highest).

Scotland’s initial experience was instructive to the rest of the UK and its example provided the UK government with a blueprint to follow (eventually). It began with a new policy choice – reverting to teacher assessed grades – sold as fairer to victims of the standardisation process. Once this precedent had been set, a different course for policymakers at the UK level became difficult to resist, particularly when faced with a similar backlash. The UK’s government’s decision in turn influenced the Welsh and Northern Irish governments.

In short, we can see that the particular ordering of choices created a cascading effect across the four governments which created initially one policy solution, before triggering a U-turn. This focus on order and timing should not be lost during the inevitable inquiries and reports on the examinations systems. The take-home message is to not ignore the policy process when evaluating the long-term effect of these policies. Focus on why the standardisation processes went wrong is welcome, but we should also focus on why the policymaking process malfunctioned, to produce a wildly inconsistent approach to the same policy choice in such a short space of time. Examining both aspects of this fiasco will be crucial to the grading process in 2021, given that governments will be seeking an alternative to exams for a second year.

__________________________

Note: the above draws on the authors’ published work in British Politics.

Why Boris Johnson is so important to Scottish independence

Why is the presence of Boris Johnson so important to the prospect of Scottish independence? Why is it so important to the fate of the Scottish Conservatives? How are both questions connected?

One way to answer these questions is to think back to the relative success of the Scottish Conservatives in the most recent elections in Westminster and Holyrood. During this period, the party’s Scottish strategy was simple and effective:

1. Focus on its leader in Scotland – Ruth Davidson – and downplay the party.
2. Focus almost exclusively on opposing a second referendum on Scottish independence.
3. Promote Ruth Davidson’s image – as a competent, reliable, and therefore trustworthy leader – to give weight to its message on the referendum.

Another is to remember that some key UK factors helped facilitate this approach:

4. UK Prime Ministers – David Cameron and Theresa May – were relatively respectful towards Scottish political actors and relatively sympathetic to the Scottish context.
5. Until the Brexit debate and its aftermath, they were often able to project a sense of order and use it to highlight a set of relatively consistent rules, norms, and expectations about how politics should work.

In that context, think about the extent to which any of these factors now hold:

1. Boris Johnson will often overshadow the Scottish party and its leader, reinforcing the old association between (a) support for constitutional change, and (b) opposition to the Conservatives.
2. He will likely slip up, either by appearing to favour a second Scottish referendum on impulse, or by opposing it in an unhelpful way.
3. His reputation for incompetent buffoonery may seem cute to his supporters, but embarrassing and damaging to Scottish Conservatives.
4. He is already on record as being disrespectful to the Scottish case, and will be under relatively high pressure to ‘stand up for England’ in the way that the SNP has become known as ‘standing up for Scotland’.
5. All bets are off in relation to the idea that there is a standard way to deal with demands for things like referendums.

Put more simply, the person in charge of telling the SNP not to be so gung ho, unreasonable, or obsessed with national identity and independence from an external authority, will be Boris Johnson.

The impact of multi-level policymaking on the UK energy system

In September, we will begin a one-year UKERC project examining current and future energy policy and multi-level policymaking and its impact on ‘energy systems’. This is no mean feat, since the meaning of policy, policymaking (or the ‘policy process’), and ‘system’ are not clear, and our description of the components parts of an energy system and a complex policymaking system may differ markedly. So, one initial aim is to provide some way to turn a complex field of study into something simple enough to understand and engage with.

We do so by focusing on ‘multi-level policymaking’ – which can encompass concepts such as multi-level governance and intergovernmental relations – to reflect the fact that the responsibility for policies relevant to energy are often Europeanised, devolved, and shared between several levels of government. Brexit will produce a major effect on energy and non-energy policies, and prompt the UK and devolved governments to produce relationships, but we all need more clarity on the dynamics of current arrangements before we can talk sensibly about the future. To that end, we pursue three main work packages:

1. What is the ‘energy policymaking system’ and how does it affect the energy system?

Chaudry et al (2009: iv) define the UK energy system as ‘the set of technologies, physical infrastructure, institutions, policies and practices located in and associated with the UK which enable energy services to be delivered to UK consumers’. UK policymaking can have a profound impact, and constitutional changes might produce policy change, but their impacts require careful attention. So, we ‘map’ the policy process and the effect of policy change on energy supply and demand. Mapping sounds fairly straightforward but contains a series of tasks whose level of difficulty rises each time:

1. Identify which level or type of government is responsible – ‘on paper’ and in practice – for the use of each relevant policy instrument.
2. Identify how these actors interact to produce what we call ‘policy’, which can range from statements of intent to final outcomes.
3. Identify an energy policy process containing many actors at many levels, the rules they follow, the networks they form, the ‘ideas’ that dominate discussion, and the conditions and events (often outside policymaker control) which constrain and facilitate action. By this stage, we need to draw on particular policy theories to identify key venues, such as subsystems, and specific collections of actors, such as advocacy coalitions, to produce a useful model of activity.

2. Who is responsible for action to reduce energy demand?

Energy demand is more challenging to policymakers than energy supply because the demand side involves millions of actors who, in the context of household energy use, also constitute the electorate. There are political tensions in making policies to reduce energy demand and carbon where this involves cost and inconvenience for private actors who do not necessarily value the societal returns achieved, and the political dynamics often differ from policy to regulate industrial demand. There are tensions around public perceptions of whose responsibility it is to take action – including local, devolved, national, or international government agencies – and governments look like they are trying to shift responsibility to each other or individuals and firms.

So, there is no end of ways in which energy demand could be regulated or influenced – including energy labelling and product/building standards, emissions reduction measures, promotion of efficient generation, and buildings performance measures – but it is an area of policy which is notoriously diffuse and lacking in co-ordination. So, for the large part, we consider if Brexit provides a ‘window of opportunity’ to change policy and policymaking by, for example, clarifying responsibilities and simplifying relationships.

3: Does Brexit affect UK and devolved policy on energy supply?

It is difficult for single governments to coordinate an overall energy mix to secure supply from many sources, and multi-level policymaking adds a further dimension to planning and cooperation. Yet, the effect of constitutional changes is highly uneven. For example, devolution has allowed Scotland to go its own way on renewable energy, nuclear power and fracking, but Brexit’s impact ranges from high to low. It presents new and sometimes salient challenges for cooperation to supply renewable energy but, while fracking and nuclear are often the most politically salient issues, Brexit may have relatively little impact on policymaking within the UK.

We explore the possibility that renewables policy may be most impacted by Brexit, while nuclear and fracking are examples in which Brexit may have a minimal direct impact on policy. Overall, the big debates are about the future energy mix, and how local, devolved, and UK governments balance the local environmental impacts of, and likely political opposition to, energy development against the economic and energy supply benefits.

For more details, see our 4-page summary

Powerpoint for 13.7.17

Cairney et al UKERC presentation 23.10.17

Racism and Stories in Scottish Politics

Brexit boosts the case for Scottish independence because it can now be framed more easily as the cosmopolitan choice: vote Yes to get away from a ‘little England’ mentality. This possibility was perhaps in Labour’s mind when it described Scottish nationalism as anything but cosmopolitan. For example, Sadiq Khan seemed to link Scottish nationalism strongly with the divisiveness of Trump and Leave campaigns, prompting some debate about how far he went to equate it with bigotry and racism, while former Labour minister Douglas Alexander left less room for doubt.

These claims prompted a small number of commentary pieces supporting or rejecting the idea that Scottish nationalism fosters racism, bigotry, and/ or social division:

• Claire Heuchan welcomed Khan’s intervention cautiously, highlighting a tendency of Scottish actors to assert their superiority over their English counterparts, and using the opportunity to expand the debate, to highlight important issues that we often ignore, from personal stories of racist abuse and examples of more limited education and employment opportunities for people of colour, to the role of Scotland in the British empire’s colonial past built on slavery and exploitation.
• In contrast, Robert Somynne identified a civic Scottish nationalism far apart from a ‘western trend towards populism based on tribal and ethnic divisions’, arguing that Khan’s description ‘doesn’t bear out the experience of so many people of colour in Scotland who campaigned in the grassroots’.
• Kevin McKenna ridiculed Khan’s argument, rejecting the idea of nationalism underpinned by anti-Englishness, identifying a more divisive UK politics of which Labour is a key part, and dismissing Khan and others as part of ‘the leftwing intelligentsia’. John McKee argued that current Scottish nationalism is more about rejecting the British state than British people, while Eric Joyce links it more to rejecting more worrying forms of nationalism pursued by parties like UKIP.

The debate rages on in twitter, but the discussion has not been driven primarily by a willingness to listen, engage constructively, or talk about issues that challenge our beliefs. I don’t suppose you need me to explain why, but it’s worth highlighting three analytically-separate explanations that will likely be present throughout all debates like this:

1. The devil shift undermines debate

People form coalitions with the people who share their beliefs, and they compete with people who don’t. The ‘devil shift’ describes a form of ‘groupthink’; a tendency of actors in those coalitions to romanticise their own cause and demonise the cause of their opponents: ‘anyone who disagrees with them must be mistaken about the facts, operating from the wrong value premises, or acting from evil motive’ (Sabatier, Hunter and McLaughlin). They question the motives of their opponents but not their allies, subject only their opponent’s arguments to criticism, and think their opponents are more powerful than they are.

If all debates are interpreted through this lens of Scottish independence, you can predict the results: Yes groups will see Khan’s intervention as threatening to their beliefs and aims, No groups will embrace it because it supports their beliefs and aims, and there is little scope for conflict resolution. Indeed, during such debates, we’ll put up with some sketchy characters if they support our cause while denouncing their equivalents in the other coalition.

This dynamic will be apparent each time we interpret each issue. For example, imagine a semi-honest and open discussion about Scotland and the colonial empire. One side might combine two points – Scotland ‘punches above its weight’ in every endeavour, and Scotland was part of the empire – to argue that Scotland played a disproportionate role in colonialism and slavery. The other will remind us of the unequal and coerced alliance of 1707 and/ or blame an unelected elite in Scotland for the Union and empire, to argue that Scottish independence is the best way to reject the colonial past. The same history has a very different villain and moral.

2. There are two colliding roles of storytelling

We can identify two main roles of personal storytelling: (1) to empower an individual, when they share their experiences of life and feel listened to, and (2) to take forward a political agenda, when they identify a hero/ villain and moral that suits one coalition’s beliefs and aims.

In our case, it is difficult to separate the two, and most people are not willing or able to do so. This may be understandable with Khan’s recent intervention since, although he generally has an important story to tell from his perspective, this specific speech seemed designed to bolster the position of Scottish Labour at its party conference. Heuchan’s experience is more worrying, her motives seemed far less instrumental and her personal story was worth listening to, but almost no-one has simply said ‘thank you for your story’ without adding conditions or objections. There are very few spaces in which people will listen rather than judge.

3. Some topics are unusually personal

In part, this is because few people like to think that they are racist or bigoted. Some won’t think about the ways in which they benefit from the systematic effects of racism – in which some groups benefit disproportionately from education/ employment opportunities and face a smaller risk of personal abuse – partly because they don’t have to, and it’s generally not an enjoyable experience. Others will flinch at the idea that they are privileged because they are white, often because they have vivid memories of personal experiences of abuse or disadvantage linked to another part of their background, such as their gender, class, religion, or disability.

So, we often want to tell our stories without listing to those of others. If there is no such space in which to exchange the details of such stories, we soon end up with heated, futile debates based on the sense that you don’t understand my experience or perspective before you criticise it. We can’t solve this problem, but we should at least be aware of it, and perhaps be aware that, although the Scottish debate has some unusual features, it is one of many examples of routine divisive politics.

 

There may never be a good time to call #indyref2, but …

PAIS Seminar: Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) of the University of Stirling on 'Scotland & Brexit.’ Tomorrow at 2.30pm in OC1.01, all welcome!

— PAIS Warwick (@PAISWarwick) February 27, 2017

This is a blog post for one of the two talks I offered to give, first at Warwick then Dundee.

Scottish Politics in Brexit Britain – Tuesday 14 March, 6pm Dundee Arts Café https://t.co/HV5Q34mT1V pic.twitter.com/bGYlLTup6x

— ProfessorPaulCairney (@CairneyPaul) February 16, 2017

I’ll start off with the same admission of hubris each time: these talks take a while to arrange, I suggested the topic in the late summer, and I assumed I’d know something about the effect of Brexit on the future of Scottish politics by now. Instead, I don’t know much more than the stuff I described in June (‘Brexit and the inevitability of Scottish Independence’). So, I’ll focus on what we know now, and speculate wildly (hand gestures at 100%) about what might happen. My gut still tells me that there will be an indyref2 and that Yes will win, but my gut is pretty crap.

Let’s start with an updated summary of why Brexit is good for Yes:

1. It reinforces a well-established argument for constitutional change: we voted for X but got Y because we are outnumbered by voters in England. Voting Remain but getting Leave is the latest version of voting Labour (and now SNP) in Scotland but getting a Conservative UK government.
2. It reinforces the same argument about the effect of that ‘democratic deficit’: ‘London’/’Westminster’ is forcing us to accept policies we did not choose. Voting Leave is the latest version of the ‘bedroom tax’ (and, for older readers, the ‘poll tax’).
3. It helps reframe the idea that the Scottish independence aim is nationalist and parochial. Suddenly, independence is the cosmopolitan choice if we are rejecting a ‘Little England’ mentality.
4. Some people who voted to stay in the UK and EU will prefer the EU to the UK (and think an independence vote is the best way to achieve it).

Traditionally, the main response to 1 & 2 has come from the Conservative Party, offering concessions in areas such as spending, levels of representation in Westminster, and in Scotland’s status in UK-devolved relations.

Recently, UKIP has been more critical of Scotland’s privileged position in the UK, and even the Conservative party qualifies its support of Scotland’s place in the Union.

Labour’s more recent response has been more interesting, and not what I expected. I figured Scottish Labour would encourage the equivalent of a free vote of its members. Instead, it has rejected indyref2 in favour of a ‘federal’ solution and two anti-referendum strategies:

1. To describe indyref2 as yet another divisive and destabilising event like Brexit and the election of Trump.
2. To challenge the idea that Scottish independence is the cosmopolitan choice. Sadiq Khan seemed to link Scottish nationalism strongly with the divisiveness of Trump and Leave campaigns, prompting some debate about how far he went to equate it with bigotry and racism. Although Khan is reported to have backtracked a bit, former Labour minister Douglas Alexander doubled down:

(4/5) The answer after Trump/Brexit isn't Scottish or British nationalism with more walls, borders, grievance & new divisions.

— Douglas Alexander (@D_G_Alexander) February 25, 2017

This strategy has gone down like a fart in a lift among people already committed to Yes. It’s too early to gauge its durability or long term effect on the voters thinking about switching, but we already know that the SNP campaigned in indyref1 with a message – for example, ‘to make life better for the people who live here’ – that contrasts heavily with the anti-immigrant rhetoric in some parts of the Leave campaign. Indeed, I’d expect it to reinforce a pro-immigration (or, a very pro-EU citizen) message to provide a deliberate contrast to parts of the Brexit campaign, making it relatively difficult for Labour to maintain an if-you-vote-Yes-you-share-the-same-aim-as-bigots argument (which didn’t work well during the Brexit debate anyway).

Let’s continue with an updated summary of why Brexit is good for No

1. The No campaign was based on the economic harms of independence, and key symbols (like oil price volatility) have reinforced the message.
2. We still don’t know what currency an independent Scotland would use.
3. The Yes vote meant all things to all people, with no sense of what would be realistic.
4. Brexit shows you that a transition to independence would be far tougher than advertised.

Point 4 is still unfolding. We’ve already seen that the £350m-for-the-NHS argument was mince, a reduction in the value of the pound, and some hard talking from likely EU negotiators (UK hard-talking was a key theme of indyref1). Yet, the effects of such developments are still open to debate (the £ issue is bad for the consumer but good for the exporter).

More importantly, it’s hard to know how to relate these events to Scotland. One the one hand, Yes needs a disastrous Brexit to show that it is powerless to ward off disaster. On the other, No needs a partly-disastrous Brexit to show that separation is painful.

Can there be a ‘rational’ calculation of when/if to call indyref2?

If we focus on the idea of a rational calculating Nicola Sturgeon, developing a formula to determine the right time to hold indyref2, the timing would involve: (a) waiting long enough for Brexit to ‘bite’ and prompt voters to feel its effects and shift to Yes, and (b) waiting for the UK Government to stiff Scotland in its negotiations of future Scottish devolved powers, but (c) not waiting too long to disrupt the (not guaranteed) continuation of its EU membership. This time has not arrived and, as John Curtice suggests, may not arrive.

Or, will it come down to passion and emotion?

Yet, if recent events have taught us anything, it’s that people are driven strongly by emotion, and might put ‘feelings over facts’. So, why should leaders of the SNP be exempt from a bout of passion, especially if loads of their supporters are keen, see it as a last opportunity for decades, and hope that they can change some minds during the next campaign? The fact that I argue the very opposite in another post is neither here nor there!

I still think that the result itself will comes down to who tells the Yes/ No stories and how well they do it, and that Yes has a far better hero/villain story now than in 2014, while No has the same old boring story of economic disaster and can no longer rely on those leaflets with Salmond’s face on a pound coin.

See also: a gazillion posts on the last Scottish referendum (scroll)

 

 

The Scottish Government’s holistic education policy: a story of profound success or failure?

The Scottish Government experience of education can give us all a profound lesson, but I’m not yet sure what that lesson will be. The positive lesson might be that you can have a holistic approach to education provision, which has a strategy for childcare, early years, and schools that support further and higher education policy effectively. In particular, its key aim is to address inequality in attainment from a very early age, to solve one driver of unequal access to higher education. More people have a chance of a place at University and higher education remains free.

The negative lesson might be that if you don’t solve the problem at an early stage, your other policies look regressive and reinforce inequalities. Instead of seeing a government committed in a meaningful way to reducing educational inequalities throughout a life course, we see government hubris in one area supporting a vote-chasing and damaging policy in another. Free University education remains a benefit for the higher attainers, and inequalities are reinforced by the lack of financial support for low income students.

In a party political context, we can decide very quickly what lesson to take: for the SNP and its supporters, we are on course for a game changing education policy at all levels. Free tuition fees will become the symbol of its overall success. For their critics, policy is failing at almost every stage and the SNP is saved only by our fixation on the constitution as the beacon for our attention and source of policy obstacles. Every pound spent on free tuition fees for the middle classes is a pound not spent on tackling the worrying levels of attainment inequalities in schools (a point that the Scottish Government often seems to support, with reference to the ‘Heckman curve’ on the greater benefits of spending on high quality education at an early age).

As usual, the truth is likely to be in the middle but, because superficial partisan positions are often so extreme, the middle is a very large space. Without more honesty about what we can generally expect from government policies, and what we can reasonably expect from specific current and future initiatives, this debate will remain a source of poor entertainment, not enlightenment.

What can a government do to reduce educational inequality? What will it do?

The main focus of our ‘game-changer versus hubris’ debate comes from a striking speech by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the SNP Government’s aim to abolish inequalities in education attainment. Note how starkly Sturgeon expressed this aim in August 2015:

‘My aim – to put it bluntly – is to close the attainment gap completely. It will not be done overnight – I accept that. But it must be done. After all, its existence is more than just an economic and social challenge for us all. It is a moral challenge. Indeed, I would argue that it goes to the very heart of who we are and how we see ourselves as a nation’.

Sturgeon’s uncompromising language suggests that Scottish governments can and will produce a profound level of influence on socio-economic outcomes.

UK government ministers have abandoned such language partly because they frame the problem increasingly as an individual, not structural, problem. They have no stated ambition to go to the ‘root cause’ of the problem to reduce the socio-economic inequalities driving many attainment inequalities through a far more redistributive tax and benefits system.

It is therefore striking that the SNP-led Scottish Government also has no plans (and a limited ability) to take a ‘root cause’, majorly redistributive fiscal, approach. Instead, we see the use of public services to mitigate the effects of socioeconomic inequalities. This strategy relies heavily on ‘prevention’ policies to intervene as early as possible in people’s lives – through parenting programmes and childcare provision – to improve their chances.

Further, I have not seen another speech like it. Instead, the SNP manifesto in 2016 restated its commitment to free tuition and presented far more modest language on making: ‘significant progress in closing the attainment gap within the lifetime of the next parliament and substantially eliminating it within a decade’.

What can we realistically say about their likely effects?

In that more realistic context, you get the sense that these attainment-reducing initiatives will have limited effect. They include £100m fund to encourage new initiatives and learn from success stories such as the London Challenge, the partial return of testing pupils at key stages in schools, as part of a National Improvement Framework for Scottish education, to ‘ensure that we are making progress in closing the gap in attainment between those in our most and least deprived areas’, and possible reforms to local and regional governance to encourage learning between schools. These school-based measures come on top of substantial plans to increase or maintain childcare entitlement for 3-4 year olds, and for 2 year olds whose guardians meet income-based criteria.

In terms of the effect of attainment strategies on future University entry, we can say that the Scottish Government expects substantial results from schools in 10 years and from its expanded childcare provision (to vulnerable 2 year olds) in 15 years. As described, this does not seem like a holistic or joined up policy anymore, because it involves a gap, between the effect of one policy on another, so large that it seems unreasonable to link the two together.

An early years and attainment strategy this long-term provides almost no cover to its HE policy. Instead, we have free tuition fees in Universities which, in the absence of redistributive fiscal policy, and the long term presence of an attainment gap, reinforces inequalities in education in several ways: a reduced likelihood of University attendance in school leavers from a deprived background; a tendency for HE policy to benefit the middle classes disproportionately, since the debt burden is higher on poorer HE students, and University funding seems to come at the expense of the college places more likely to be filled by students from lower income backgrounds; and a failure to take the Heckman curve seriously enough to prompt a major shift in funding from Universities and schools to early years.

Overall, I expect that we will look back on that one speech – on the ‘moral challenge’ to ‘close the attainment gap completely’ – as an outlier. It is an aim that sounds impressive as a rhetorical device, but it is not backed up by a coherent set of public policies designed to fulfil that end, and – even with the best will in the world – it is not a policy designed to remove the regressive effects of free HE tuition.

 

We all want ‘evidence based policy making’ but how do we do it?

Here are some notes for my talk to the Scottish Government on Thursday as part of its ‘inaugural ‘evidence in policy week’. The advertised abstract is as follows:

A key aim in government is to produce ‘evidence based’ (or ‘informed’) policy and policymaking, but it is easier said than done. It involves two key choices about (1) what evidence counts and how you should gather it, and (2) the extent to which central governments should encourage subnational policymakers to act on that evidence. Ideally, the principles we use to decide on the best evidence should be consistent with the governance principles we adopt to use evidence to make policy, but what happens when they seem to collide? Cairney provides three main ways in which to combine evidence and governance-based principles to help clarify those choices.

I plan to use the same basic structure of the talks I gave to the OSF (New York) and EUI-EP (Florence) in which I argue that every aspect of ‘evidence based policy making’ is riddled with the necessity to make political choices (even when we define EBPM):

I’ll then ‘zoom in’ on points 4 and 5 regarding the relationship between EBPM and governance principles. They are going to videotape the whole discussion to use for internal discussions, but I can post the initial talk here when it becomes available. Please don’t expect a TED talk (especially the E part of TED).

EBPM and good governance principles

The Scottish Government has a reputation for taking certain governance principles seriously, to promote high stakeholder ‘ownership’ and ‘localism’ on policy, and produce the image of a:

1. Consensual consultation style in which it works closely with interest groups, public bodies, local government organisations, voluntary sector and professional bodies, and unions when making policy.
2. Trust-based implementation style indicating a relative ability or willingness to devolve the delivery of policy to public bodies, including local authorities, in a meaningful way

Many aspects of this image were cultivated by former Permanent Secretaries: Sir John Elvidge described a ‘Scottish Model’ focused on joined-up government and outcomes-based approaches to policymaking and delivery, and Sir Peter Housden labelled the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) as an alternative to the UK’s command-and-control model of government, focusing on the ‘co-production’ of policy with local communities and citizens.

The ‘Scottish Approach’ has implications for evidence based policy making

Note the major implication for our definition of EBPM. One possible definition, derived from ‘evidence based medicine’, refers to a hierarchy of evidence in which randomised control trials and their systematic review are at the top, while expertise, professional experience and service user feedback are close to the bottom. An uncompromising use of RCTs in policy requires that we maintain a uniform model, with the same basic intervention adopted and rolled out within many areas. The focus is on identifying an intervention’s ‘active ingredient’, applying the correct dosage, and evaluating its success continuously.

This approach seems to challenge the commitment to localism and ‘co-production’.

At the other end of the spectrum is a storytelling approach to the use of evidence in policy. In this case, we begin with key governance principles – such as valuing the ‘assets’ of individuals and communities – and inviting people to help make and deliver policy. Practitioners and service users share stories of their experiences and invite others to learn from them. There is no model of delivery and no ‘active ingredient’.

This approach seems to challenge the commitment to ‘evidence based policy’

The Goldilocks approach to evidence based policy making: the improvement method

We can understand the Scottish Government’s often-preferred method in that context. It has made a commitment to:

‘Service performance and improvement underpinned by data, evidence and the application of improvement methodologies’

So, policymakers use many sources of evidence to identify promising, make broad recommendations to practitioners about the outcomes they seek, and they train practitioners in the improvement method (a form of continuous learning summed up by a ‘Plan-Do-Study-Act’ cycle).

This approach appears to offer the best of both worlds; just the right mix of central direction and local discretion, with the promise of combining well-established evidence from sources including RCTs with evidence from local experimentation and experience.

Four unresolved issues in decentralised evidence-based policy making

Not surprisingly, our story does not end there. I think there are four unresolved issues in this process:

1. The Scottish Government often indicates a preference for improvement methods but actually supports all three of the methods I describe. This might reflect an explicit decision to ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ or the inability to establish a favoured approach.
2. There is not a single way of understanding ‘improvement methodology’. I describe something akin to a localist model here, but other people describe a far more research-led and centrally coordinated process.
3. Anecdotally, I hear regularly that key stakeholders do not like the improvement method. One could interpret this as a temporary problem, before people really get it and it starts to work, or a fundamental difference between some people in government and many of the local stakeholders so important to the ‘Scottish approach’.

4. The spectre of democratic accountability and the politics of EBPM

The fourth unresolved issue is the biggest: it’s difficult to know how this approach connects with the most important reference in Scottish politics: the need to maintain Westminster-style democratic accountability, through periodic elections and more regular reports by ministers to the Scottish Parliament. This requires a strong sense of central government and ministerial control – if you know who is in charge, you know who to hold to account or reward or punish in the next election.

In principle, the ‘Scottish approach’ provides a way to bring together key aims into a single narrative. An open and accessible consultation style maximises the gathering of information and advice and fosters group ownership. A national strategic framework, with cross-cutting aims, reduces departmental silos and balances an image of democratic accountability with the pursuit of administrative devolution, through partnership agreements with local authorities, the formation of community planning partnerships, and the encouragement of community and user-driven design of public services. The formation of relationships with public bodies and other organisations delivering services, based on trust, fosters the production of common aims across the public sector, and reduces the need for top-down policymaking. An outcomes-focus provides space for evidence-based and continuous learning about what works.

In practice, a government often needs to appear to take quick and decisive action from the centre, demonstrate policy progress and its role in that progress, and intervene when things go wrong. So, alongside localism it maintains a legislative, financial, and performance management framework which limits localism.

How far do you go to ensure EBPM?

So, when I describe the ‘5 things to do’, usually the fifth element is about how far scientists may want to go, to insist on one model of EBPM when it has the potential to contradict important governance principles relating to consultation and localism. For a central government, the question is starker:

Do you have much choice about your model of EBPM when the democratic imperative is so striking?

I’ll leave it there on a cliff hanger, since these are largely questions to prompt discussion in specific workshops. If you can’t attend, there is further reading on the EBPM and EVIDENCE tabs on this blog, and specific papers on the Scottish dimension

The ‘Scottish Approach to Policy Making’: Implications for Public Service Delivery

Paul Cairney, Siabhainn Russell and Emily St Denny (2016) “The ‘Scottish approach’ to policy and policymaking: what issues are territorial and what are universal?” Policy and Politics, 44, 3, 333-50

The politics of evidence-based best practice: 4 messages

 

 

#indyref2

A version of this post appears in The Conversation.

Nicola Sturgeon has announced a consultation on a new Bill on Scottish Independence. Clearly, it made the audience at the SNP’s conference very happy, but what should the rest of us make of it? My gut tells me there will be a second referendum but wouldn’t yet bet my house on it, because that decision is wrapped up in three unresolved issues.

First, there won’t be a referendum unless the SNP thinks it will win, but the polls won’t tell us the answer before Sturgeon has to ask the question! It sounds simple to hold back a referendum until enough people tell you they’ll vote Yes. The complication is that many people don’t know what their choice will be until they can make sense of recent events. ‘Brexit’ might be a ‘game changer’ in a year or two, but it isn’t right now, and Sturgeon might have to choose to pursue a referendum before those polls change in her favour.

Second, the polls don’t tell us much because it is too soon to know what Brexit will look like. The idea of Brexit is still too abstract and not yet related to the arguments that might win the day for a Yes vote.

In each case, I don’t think we can expect to see the full effect of such arguments because (a) they don’t yet form part of a coherent argument linked directly to Brexit, because (b) we still don’t yet know what Brexit looks like. If you don’t really know what something is, how it relates to your life, and who you should blame for that outcome, how can you express a view on its effect on your political preferences?

Third, it is therefore too soon to know how different the second Scottish independence referendum would be. The SNP would like it to relate to the constitutional crisis caused by Brexit, basing its case on a combination of simple statements: England is pulling Scotland out of the EU against our will; the Tories caused this problem; we want to clear up the mess that they caused; it’s a bit rich for the Tories to warn us about the disastrous economic consequences of Scottish independence after the havoc they just caused; and, we want to be a cosmopolitan Scotland, not little England.

Instead, what if people see the Leave vote as a cautionary tale? It is not easy to argue that our response to the catastrophic effect of a withdrawal from a major political, economic, and social union should be to withdraw from another major political, economic, and social union! This is particularly true now that Brexit has opened up the possibility of more devolution (a possibility that had been closed off before now). A feasible alternative is to push for more autonomy in the areas that are devolved and ‘Europeanised’ – including agriculture, fishing, and environmental policies – as a way to have the UK deal with the Scottish Government as ‘as equals on a range of areas’.

So, I’d describe Sturgeon’s announcement as a short term win: why not give your most active audience something to cheer about while you wait for events to unfold? Predicting the timing of a referendum is more difficult because it relates more to a concept than a date: it will be the point at which (a) we know enough about the meaning of Brexit to judge its likely impact, and (b) we have to decide before it feels too late (in other words, in time to respond to the timetable of the UK’s exit from the EU).

Some people are worrying that the UK Government might scupper the SNP’s chances directly, by withholding consent for a second referendum. Maybe it would be better to be tricksy indirectly, by remaining vague about the impact of Brexit and having people in Scotland worry about making a choice before they know its effect.

 

 

‘Hard Brexit’ is not yet a game changer for Scottish Independence

The Herald reports that ‘Hard Brexit is not a game changer for SNP’. Based on its latest BMG poll, it describes an even split between those who want/ don’t want a second referendum on Scottish independence, and between those who want an early or late referendum.

These results don’t seem too surprising because the idea of Brexit is still too abstract and not yet related to the arguments that might win the day for a Yes vote. I think the basic story would relate to a combination of simple statements such as:

• England is pulling Scotland out of the EU against our will
• The Tories caused this problem
• We want to clear up the mess that they caused
• It’s a bit rich for the Tories to warn us about the disastrous economic consequences of Scottish independence after the havoc they just caused
• We want to be a cosmopolitan Scotland, not little England

In each case, I don’t think we can expect to see the widespread effect of such arguments because (a) they don’t yet form part of a coherent argument linked directly to Brexit, because (b) we still don’t yet know what Brexit looks like.

If you don’t really know what something is, how it relates to your life, and who you should blame for that outcome, how can you express a view on its effect on your political preferences?

The Scottish Parliament would be a bit less crap in an independent Scotland and some people care

See also: The Scottish Parliament would be crap in an independent Scotland and almost no-one cares

The Scottish Government made a recent amendment to the Scottish Ministerial Code to restrict the role of MSPs while ‘Parliamentary Liaison Officers’ (PLOs) in the Scottish Parliament. PLOs are not members or the Scottish Government, but they work closely with ministers and sit on committees scrutinising ministers, which blurs the boundary between policymaking and scrutiny.

While previous Labour-led governments made a decent effort to deny that this is a problem (1999-2007), the SNP (from 2007) perfected that denial by allowing PLOs to sit on the very committees scrutinising their ministers.

Now, after some (social and traditional) media and opposition party pressure, its revised guidelines in the 2016 Scottish Ministerial Code – remove a large part of the problem:

PLOs may serve on Parliamentary Committees, but they should not serve on Committees with a substantial direct link to their Cabinet Secretary’s portfolio … At the beginning of each Parliamentary session, or when changes to PLO appointments are made, the Minister for Parliamentary Business will advise Parliament which MSPs have been appointed as PLOs. The Minister for Parliamentary Business will also ensure that PLO appointments are brought to the attention of Committee Conveners. PLOs should ensure that they declare their appointment as a PLO on the first occasion they are participating in Parliamentary business related to the portfolio of their Cabinet Secretary.

The only thing that (I think) remains missing is the stipulation in the 2003 code that PLOs ‘should not table oral Parliamentary Questions on issues for which their minister is responsible’. So, we should still expect the odd question along the lines of, ‘Minister, why are you so great?’.

Early intervention policy, from ‘troubled families’ to ‘named persons’: problems with evidence and framing ‘valence’ issues

Imagine this as your ‘early intervention’ policy choice: (a) a universal and non-stigmatising programme for all parents/ children, with minimal evidence of effectiveness, high cost, and potential public opposition about the state intervening in family life; or (b) a targeted, stigmatising programme for a small number, with more evidence, less cost, but the sense that you are not really intervening ‘early’ (instead, you are waiting for problems to arise before you intervene). What would you do, and how would you sell your choice to the public?

I ask this question because ‘early intervention’ seems to the classic valence issue with a twist. Most people seem to want it in the abstract: isn’t it best to intervene as early as possible in a child’s life to protect them or improve their life chances?

However, profound problems or controversies arise when governments try to pursue it. There are many more choices than I presented, but the same basic trade-offs arise in each case. So, at the start, it looks like you have lucked onto a policy that almost everyone loves. At the end, you realise that you can’t win. There is no such thing as a valence issue at the point of policy choice and delivery.

To expand on these dilemmas in more depth, I compare cases of Scottish and UK Government ‘families policies’. In previous posts, I portrayed their differences – at least in the field of prevention and early intervention policies – as more difficult to pin down than you might think. Often, they either say the same things but ‘operationalise’ them in very different ways, or describe very different problems then select very similar solutions.

This basic description sums up very similar waves of key ‘families policies’ since devolution: an initial focus on social inclusion, then anti-social behaviour, followed by a contemporary focus on ‘whole family’ approaches and early intervention. I will show how they often go their own ways, but note the same basic context for choice, and similar choices, which help qualify that picture.

Early intervention & prevention policies are valence issues …

A valence (or ‘motherhood and apple pie’) issue is one in which you can generate huge support because the aim seems, to most people, to be obviously good. Broad aims include ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. In the UK specific aims include a national health service free at the point of use. We often focus on valence issues to highlight the importance of a political party’s or leader’s image of governing competence: it is not so much what we want (when the main parties support very similar things), but who you trust to get it.

Early intervention seems to fit the bill: who would want you to intervene late or too late in someone’s life when you can intervene early, to boost their life chances at an early stage as possible? All we have to do is work out how to do it well, with reference to some good evidence. Yet, as I discuss below, things get complicated as soon as we consider the types of early intervention available, generally described roughly as a spectrum from primary (stop a problem occurring and focus on the whole population – like a virus inoculation) to secondary (address a problem at an early stage, using proxy indicators to identify high-risk groups), and tertiary (stop a problem getting worse in already affected groups).

Similarly, look at how Emily St Denny and I describe prevention policy. Would many people object to the basic principles?

“In the name of prevention, the UK and Scottish Governments propose to radically change policy and policymaking across the whole of government. Their deceptively simple definition of ‘prevention policy’ is: a major shift in resources, from the delivery of reactive public services to solve acute problems, to the prevention of those problems before they occur. The results they promise are transformative, to address three crises in politics simultaneously: a major reduction in socioeconomic equalities by focusing on their ‘root causes’; a solution to unsustainable public spending which is pushing public services to breaking point; and, new forms of localised policymaking, built on community and service user engagement, to restore trust in politics”.

… but the evidence on their effectiveness is inconvenient …

A good simple rule about ‘evidence-based policymaking’ is that there is never a ‘magic bullet’ to tell you what to do or take the place of judgement. Politics is about making choices which benefit some people while others lose out. You can use evidence to help clarify those choices, but not produce a ‘technical’ solution. A further rule with ‘wicked’ problems is that the evidence is not good enough even to generate clarity about the cause of the problem. Or, you simply find out things you don’t want to hear.

Early intervention seems to be a good candidate for the latter, for three main reasons:

1. Very few interventions live up to high evidence standards

There are two main types of relevant ‘evidence based’ interventions in this field. The first are ‘family intervention projects’ (FIPs). They generally focus on low income, often lone parent, families at risk of eviction linked to factors such as antisocial behaviour, and provide two forms of intervention: intensive 24/7 support, including after school clubs for children and parenting skills classes, and treatment for addiction or depression in some cases, in dedicated core accommodation with strict rules on access and behaviour; and an outreach model of support and training. The evidence of success comes from evaluation and a counterfactual: this intervention is expensive, but we think that it would have cost far more money and heartache if we had not intervened to prevent (for example) family homelessness. There is generally no randomised control trial (RCT) to establish the cause of improved outcomes, or demonstrate that those outcomes would not have happened without an intervention of this sort.

The second are projects imported from other countries (primarily the US and Australia) based on their reputation for success. This reputation has been generated according to evidential rules associated with ‘evidence based medicine’ (EBM), in which there is relatively strong adherence to a hierarchy of evidence, with RCTs and their systematic review at the top, and the belief that there should be ‘fidelity’ to programmes to make sure that the ‘dosage’ of the intervention is delivered properly and its effect measured. Key examples include the Family Nurse Partnership (although its first UK RCT evaluation was not promising), Triple P (although James Coyne has his doubts!), and Incredible Years (but note the importance of ‘indicated’ versus ‘selective’ programmes, below). In this approach, there may be more quantitative evidence of success, but it is still difficult to know if the project can be transferred effectively and if its success can be replicated in another country with a very different political drivers, problems, and levels of existing services. We know that some interventions are associated with positive outcomes, but we struggle to establish definitively that they caused them (solely, separate from their context).

2. The evidence on ‘scaling up’ for primary prevention is relatively weak

Kenneth Dodge (2009) sums up a general problem with primary prevention in this field. It is difficult to see much evidence of success because: there are few examples of taking effective specialist projects ‘to scale’; there are major issues around ‘fidelity’ to the original project when you scale up (including the need to oversee a major expansion in well-trained practitioners); and, it is difficult to predict the effect of a programme, which showed promise when applied to one population, to a new and different population.

3. The evidence on secondary early intervention is also weak

This point about different populations with different motivations is demonstrated in a more recent (published 2014) study by Stephen Scott et al of two Incredible Years interventions – to address ‘oppositional defiant disorder symptoms and antisocial personality character traits’ in children aged 3-7 (for a wider discussion of such programmes see the Early Intervention Foundation’s Foundations for life: what works to support parent child interaction in the early years?).

They highlight a classic dilemma in early intervention: the evidence of effectiveness is only clear when children have been clinically referred (‘indicated approach’), but unclear when children have been identified as high risk using socioeconomic predictors (‘selective approach’):

An indicated approach is simpler to administer, as there are fewer children with severe problems, they are easier to identify, and their parents are usually prepared to engage in treatment; however, the problems may already be too entrenched to treat. In contrast, a selective approach targets milder cases, but because problems are less established, whole populations have to be screened and fewer cases will go on to develop serious problems.

For our purposes, this may represent the most inconvenient form of evidence on early intervention: you can intervene early on the back of very limited evidence of likely success, or have a far higher likelihood of success when you intervene later, when you are running out of time to call it ‘early intervention’.

… so governments have to make and defend highly ‘political’ choices …

I think this is key context in which we can try to understand the often-different choices by the UK and Scottish Governments. Faced with the same broad aim, to intervene early to prevent poor outcomes, the same uncertainty and lack of evidence that their interventions will produce the desired effect, and the same need to DO SOMETHING rather than wait for the evidence that may never arise, what do they do?

Both governments often did remarkably similar things before they did different things

From the late 1990s, both governments placed primary emphasis initially on a positive social inclusion agenda, followed by a relatively negative focus on anti-social behaviour (ASB), before a renewed focus on the social determinants of inequalities and the use of early intervention to prevent poor outcomes.

Both governments link families policies strongly to parenting skills, reinforcing the idea that parents are primarily responsible for the life chances of their children.

Both governments talk about getting away from deficit models of intervention (the Scottish Government in particular focuses on the ‘assets’ of individuals, families, and communities) but use deficit-model proxies to identify families in need of support, including: lone parenthood, debt problems, ill health (including disability and depression), and at least one member subject to domestic abuse or intergenerational violence, as well as professional judgements on the ‘chaotic’ or ‘dysfunctional’ nature of family life and of the likelihood of ‘family breakdown’ when, for example, a child it taken into care.

So, when we consider their headline-grabbing differences, note this common set of problems and drivers, and similar responses.

… and selling their early intervention choices is remarkably difficult …

Although our starting point was valence politics, prevention and early intervention policies are incredibly hard to get off the ground. As Emily St Denny and I describe elsewhere, when policymakers ‘make a sincere commitment to prevention, they do not know what it means or appreciate the scale of their task. They soon find a set of policymaking constraints that will always be present. When they ‘operationalise’ prevention, they face several fundamental problems, including: the identification of ‘wicked’ problems which are difficult to define and seem impossible to solve; inescapable choices on how far they should go to redistribute income, distribute public resources, and intervene in people’s lives; major competition from more salient policy aims which prompt them to maintain existing public services; and, a democratic system which limits their ability to reform the ways in which they make policy. These problems may never be overcome. More importantly, policymakers soon think that their task is impossible. Therefore, there is high potential for an initial period of enthusiasm and activity to be replaced by disenchantment and inactivity, and for this cycle to be repeated without resolution’.

These constraints refer to the broad idea of prevention policy, while specific policies can involve different drivers and constraints. With general prevention policy, it is difficult to know what government policy is and how you measure its success. ‘Prevention’ is vague, plus governments encourage local discretion to adapt the evidence of ‘what works’ to local circumstances.

Governments don’t get away with this regarding specific policies. Instead, Westminster politics is built on a simple idea of accountability in which you know who is in charge and therefore to blame. UK central governments have to maintain some semblance of control because they know that people will try to hold them to account in elections and general debate. This ‘top down’ perspective has an enduring effect, particularly in the UK, but also the Scottish, government.

… so the UK Government goes for it and faces the consequences ….

‘Troubled Families’ in England: the massive expansion of secondary prevention?

So, although prevention policy is vague, individual programmes such as ‘troubled families’ contain enough detail to generate intense debate on central government policy and performance and contain elements which emphasise high central direction, including sustained ministerial commitment, a determination to demonstrate early success to justify a further rollout of policy, and performance management geared towards specific measurable short term outcomes – even if the broader aim is to encourage local discretion and successful long term outcomes.

In the absence of unequivocally supportive evidence (which may never appear), the UK government relied on a crisis (the London riots in 2011) to sell policy, and ridiculous processes of estimation of the size of the problem and performance measurement to sell the success of its solution. In this system, ministers perceive the need to display strength, show certainty that they have correctly diagnosed a problem and its solution, and claim success using the ‘currency’ of Westminster politics – and to do these things far more quickly than the people gathering evidence of more substantive success. There is a lot of criticism of the programme in terms of its lack, or cynical use, of evidence but little of it considers policy from an elected government’s perspective.

…while the Scottish Government is more careful, but faces unintended consequences

This particular UK Government response has no parallel in Scotland. The UK Government is far more likely than its Scottish counterpart to link families policies to a moral agenda in response to crisis, and there is no Scottish Government equivalent to ‘payment by results’ and massive programme expansion. Instead, it continued more modest roll-outs in partnership with local public bodies. Indeed, if we ‘zoom in’ to this one example, at this point in time, the comparison confirms the idea of a ‘Scottish Approach’ to policy and policymaking.

Yet, the Scottish Government has not solved the problems I describe in this post: it has not found an alternative ‘evidence based’ way to ‘scale up’ early intervention significantly and move from secondary/ tertiary forms of prevention to the more universal/ primary initiatives that you might associate intuitively with prevention policy.

Instead, its different experiences have highlighted different issues. For example, its key vehicle for early intervention and prevention is the ‘collaborative’ approach, such as in the Early Years Collaborative. Possibly, it represents the opposite of the UK’s attempt to centralise and performance-manage-the-hell-out-of the direction of major expansion.

Certainty, with this approach, your main aim is not to generate evidence of the success of interventions – at least not in the way we associate with ‘evidence based medicine’, randomised control trials, and the star ratings developed by the Early Intervention Foundation. Rather, the aim is to train local practitioners to use existing evidence and adapt it to local circumstances, experimenting as you go, and gathering/using data on progress in ways not associated with, for example, the family nurse partnership.

So, in terms of the discussion so far, perhaps its main advantage is that a government does not have to sell its political choices (it is more of a delivery system than a specific intervention) or back them up with evidence of success elsewhere. In the absence of much public, media, or political party attention, maybe it’s a nice pragmatic political solution built more on governance principles than specific evidence.

Yet, despite our fixation with the constitution, some policy issues do occasionally get discussed. For our purposes, the most relevant is the ‘named person’ scheme because it looks like a way to ‘scale up’ an initiative to support a universal or primary prevention approach and avoid stigmatising some groups by offering a service to everyone (in this respect, it is the antithesis to ‘troubled families’). In this case, all children in Scotland (and their parents or guardians) get access to a senior member of a public service, and that person acts as a way to ‘join up’ a public sector response to a child’s problems.

Interestingly, this universal approach has its own problems. ‘Troubled families’ sets up a distinction between troubled/ untroubled to limit its proposed intervention in family life. Its problem is the potential to stigmatise and demoralise ‘troubled’ families. ‘Named person’ shows the potential for greater outcry when governments try to not identify and stigmatise specific families. The scheme is largely a response to the continuous suggestion – made after high profile cases of child abuse or neglect – that children can suffer when no agency takes overall responsibility for their care, but has been opposed as excessive infringement on normal family life and data protection, successfully enough to delay its implementation.

[Update 20.9.19: Named person scheme scrapped by Scottish Government]

The punchline to early intervention as a valence issue

Problems arise almost instantly when you try to turn a valence issue into something concrete. A vague and widely-supported policy, to intervene early to prevent bad outcomes, becomes a set of policy choices based on how governments frame the balance between ideology, stigma, and the evidence of the impact and cost-effectiveness of key interventions (which is often very limited).

Their experiences are not always directly comparable, but the UK and Scottish Governments have helped show us the pitfalls of concrete approaches to prevention and early intervention. They help us show that your basic policy choices include: (a) targeted programmes which increase stigma, (b) ‘indicated’ approaches which don’t always look like early intervention; (c) ‘selective’ approaches which seem to be less effective despite intervening at an earlier stage, (d) universal programmes which might cross a notional line between the state and the family, and (e) approaches which focus primarily on local experimentation with uncertain outcomes.

None of these approaches provide a solution to the early intervention dilemmas that all governments face, and there is no easy way to choose between approaches. We can make these choices more informed and systematic, by highlighting how all of the pieces of the jigsaw fit together, and somehow comparing their intended and unintended consequences. However, this process does not replace political judgement – and quite right too – because there is no such thing as a valence issue at the point of policy choice and delivery.

See also:

Paul Cairney (2019) ‘The UK government’s imaginative use of evidence to make policy’, British Politics, 14, 1, 1-22 Open Access PDF

Paul Cairney and Emily St Denny (in press, January 2020) Why Isn’t Government Policy More Preventive? (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Preview Introduction Preview Conclusion

 

 

 

 

The Scottish Parliament would be crap in an independent Scotland and almost no-one cares

Here is a four-step plan to avoid having to talk about how powerless the Scottish Parliament tends to be, in comparison to the old idea of ‘power sharing’ with the Scottish Government:

1. Find something the SNP Government is doing and point out how wrong it is.
2. Have the opposition parties pile in, taking their chance to bemoan the SNP’s power hoarding.
3. Have the SNP point out that Labour used to do this sort of thing, so it’s hypocritical to complain now.
4. Convince the public that it’s OK as long as all of the parties would have done it, or if they have been doing it for a long time.

This pretty much sums up the reaction to the SNP’s use of Parliamentary Liaison Officers (PLOs) on Scottish parliamentary committees: the MSP works closely with a minister and sits on the committee that is supposed to hold the minister to account. The practice ensures that there is no meaningful dividing line between government and parliament, and reinforces the sense that the parliament is not there to provide effective scrutiny and robust challenge to the government. Instead, plenary is there for the pantomime discussion and committees are there to have run-of-the-mill humdrum scrutiny with minimal effect on ministers.

The use of PLOs on parliamentary committees has become yet another example in which the political parties – or, at least, any party with a chance of being in government – put themselves first before the principles of the Scottish Parliament (set out in the run up to devolution). Since devolution, the party of government has gone further than you might expect to establish its influence on parliament: controlling who convenes (its share of) committees and which of its MSPs sit on committees, and moving them around if they get too good at holding ministers to account or asking too-difficult questions. An MSP on the side of government might get a name for themselves if they ask a follow-up question to a minister in a committee instead of nodding appreciatively – and you don’t want that sort of thing to develop. Better to keep it safe and ask your MSPs not to rock the boat, or move them on if they cause a ripple.

So, maybe the early founders of devolution wanted MSPs to sit on the same committees for long periods, to help them develop expertise, build up a good relationship with MSPs from other parties, and therefore work effectively to hold the government to account. Yet, no Scottish government has been willing to let go, to allow that independent role to develop. Instead, they make sure that they have at least one key MSP on each committee to help them agree the party line that all their MSPs are expected to follow. So, this development, of parliamentary aides to ministers corresponding almost exactly with committee membership, might look new, but it is really an extension of longstanding practices to curb the independent power of parliaments and their committees – and the party in government has generally resisted any reforms (including those proposed by the former Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick) to challenge its position.

Maybe the only surprise is that ‘new politics’ seems worse than old Westminster. In Westminster committees, some MPs can make a career as a chair, and their independence from government is far clearer – something that it is keen to reinforce with initiatives such as MPs electing chairs in secret ballots. In comparison, the Scottish Parliament seems like a far poorer relation to its Scottish Government counterpart – partly because of complacency and a lack of continuous reform.

Almost no-one cares about this sort of thing

What is not surprising is the general reaction to the Herald piece on the 15^th August – and the follow up on the 16^th – which pointed out that the SNP was going further than the use of PLOs it criticised while in opposition.

So, future Scottish Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop – quite rightly – criticised this practice in 2002, arguing that it went against the government’s Scottish Ministerial Code. Note the Labour-led government’s ridiculous defense, which it got away with because (a) almost no-one cares, and (b) the governing parties dominate the parliament.

Then, in 2007, the SNP government’s solution was to remove the offending section from that Code. Problem solved!

Now, its defence is that Labour used to do it and the SNP has been doing it for 9 years, so why complain now? It can get away with it because almost no-one cares. Of those who might care, most only care if it embarrasses one of the parties at the expense of another. When it looks like they might all be at it, it’s OK. Almost no-one pays attention to the principle that the Scottish Parliament should have a strong role independent of government, and that this role should not be subject to the whims of self-interested political parties.

So, I feel the need to provide a reason for SNP and independence supporters to care more about this, and here goes:

1. Most people voted No in the 1^st referendum on Scottish independence.
2. There might be a 2^nd referendum but it would be silly to expect a Yes vote this time without new and better arguments built more on actual plans rather than the generation of positivity and hope. For a political project to work, you really need to tell people what you will do if you win.
3. One of those arguments needs to be about political reform. The ‘architects of devolution’ recognised this need to offer political alongside constitutional reform, producing the sense of ‘new politics’ that we now use to show that Scottish politics fell quite short of expectations. The mistake was to assume that they had cracked it in 1999 and never needed to reform again. Instead, institutions need to be changing continuously in light of experience. So, the previous SNP White Paper (p355) was rubbish on this issue because it pretty much said that it would keep things as they were because they were working OK.

It is complacent nonsense, treating the Scottish political system as an afterthought, and it might just come back to bite the SNP in the bum. The implicit argument that The Scottish Parliament would be just as crap in an independent Scotland as it is now, and almost no-one cares is poor. Or, to put it in terms of the standard of partisan debate on twitter: shitey whataboutery might make you feel good on twitter, but it won’t win you any votes in the next referendum.

 

See also: Lucy Hunter Blackburn’s Patrick Harvie highlights close links between ministerial aides and parliamentary committees

The future of Scotland in the UK: does the remarkable popularity of the SNP make independence inevitable (version 2)?

This is an updated blog post. The original post provided notes for my lecture on the 15th June at the Centre for British Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, as part of the  Ringvorlesung: The Future of the UK: Between Internal and External Divisions. I had written it before the vote in the UK to leave the EU, which provided the only realistic chance of a second referendum on Scottish independence. So, the background sections remain the same, but I update the contemporary section with reference to Brexit and its consequences.

The advertised abstract read:

The vote to remain in the UK, in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, did not settle the matter. Nor did it harm the fortunes of the pro-independence party, the Scottish National Party. Instead, its popularity has risen remarkably, and major constitutional change remains high on the agenda, particularly during the run up to a referendum on the UK’s exit from the EU. This continued fascination with the constitution overshadows the day-to-day business of Scottish politics. Cairney highlights one aspect in particular: the tendency for limited public and parliamentary scrutiny of substantive policy issues when they are viewed through a constitutional (rather than substantive policy) lens, producing an image of weak accountability.

My aim is to:

• Explain why the Scottish National Party’s popularity is remarkable
• Note that none of us have predicted it – or indeed much of the short history of devolution – too well, and use this point as a cautionary tale
• Describe why independence is not inevitable (even though it often seems likely)
• Shoehorn in some analysis of the links between our fascination with the constitution and the more humdrum world of actual policy.
• Provide a brief update on the impact of the EU referendum, bearing in mind that I am no less hopeless than anyone else about predicting the future.

The remarkable popularity of the SNP

The SNP’s popularity is remarkable in two main ways:

1. In 1999, the main party was Scottish Labour

Scottish Labour had dominated Westminster and local elections in Scotland for decades before the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999 (it also won a plurality of European Parliament seats, but with far lower margins):

• Westminster (plurality electoral system). Labour won most Scottish seats in every election from 1959-2010. In 1997, it won 46% of the vote and 56 (78%) of 72 Scottish Westminster seats (Cairney and McGarvey, 2013: 45). The SNP won 22% of the vote and 6 (8%) seats. A similar pattern continued until 2010: Labour dominated Scottish Westminster seats even when the SNP began to win Holyrood elections.
• Local elections (plurality until 2003, single transferable vote from 2007). In 1995, its 44% of the vote translated into 613 (53%) of 1155 seats and it remained the largest party until 2007 (Cairney and McGarvey, 2013: 51).

This dominance produced an expectation that Scottish Labour would become the largest party in the Scottish Parliament for the foreseeable future. In that context, the fortunes of Labour and the SNP changed remarkably quickly (see table 3). In 1999 and 2003, the main limit to Labour dominance was the electoral system: it won the majority of constituency seats comfortably but few regional seats (it also won most constituency seats in 2007). By 2011, this position had reversed and, by 2016, the regional list was the only thing standing between Scottish Labour and electoral oblivion.

In contrast, by 2011 the SNP achieved a majority of Scottish Parliament seats because the regional element of the mixed-member proportional system (56 of 129 seats) was not large enough to offset SNP dominance of constituency seats. This is a remarkable outcome if we accept the well-shared story that Holyrood’s electoral system was ‘chosen by Labour to stop the SNP ever the getting the majority it needed to push hard on the independence agenda’ (Cairney, 2011: 28).

2. The SNP’s popularity did not dip after the 2014 referendum

You could be forgiven for thinking that a No vote in the referendum on Scottish independence would damage the SNP. If it is a single issue party, and most voters rejected its position on the issue, wouldn’t you expect it to suffer? Yet, here is what happened instead:

• Its membership rocketed, from 25000 to 75000 in two weeks, then to 115000 by 2016
• It won 56 of 59 Westminster seats in Scotland (2015) on the back of 50% of the vote
• It won a third Holyrood election in a row, only missing out narrowly on a second majority in a row (in an MMP system).

It’s not so remarkable if you know that the SNP is not a single issue party. Instead, it is a highly professional organisation which has won elections on the back of valence politics as well as identity.

The SNP did well in 2007, and very well in 2011, because ‘most voters thought that the party would do a better job in office than its rivals’. People vote for a party when they respect its leader, its vision for the future, and have a high expectation of its competence while in office – and the SNP has benefited from being a party that looks highly professional (although one’s belief in the competence of the SNP may be linked strongly to one’s national identify and support for independence).

So, (a) it’s worth noting that the SNP is doing well partly because 45% of the vote will not win you a referendum, but it (plus a bit more) will do very nicely in a not-super-proportional election system, but (b) there is far more to the SNP’s story than a translation of national identity into support for independence into support for the SNP.

None of us predicted it well: a cautionary tale

You’ll always find someone who claims that they predicted these developments correctly, but that’s because of the immense number and range of hyperbolic predictions – from the claim that devolution provided a ‘stepping stone’ to independence, to the claim that it would kill nationalism ‘stone dead’ – rather than the predictability of politics.

So, for example, in retrospect we can say that devolution provided an important new platform for the SNP, but at the time we did not know that it would use this platform so effectively from the mid-2000s.

Similarly, maybe some people in the future will look back to argue that Scottish independence was inevitable, but without being able to predict the detailed mechanisms of decisions and events.

Scottish independence is not inevitable (even though it often seems likely)

Before the Brexit vote, I tried to sell the idea that 10 years is the magic figure between Scottish referendums (2014 and 2024): a short enough distance to keep pro-independence actors content, and long enough to hope that enough people have changed their minds. In the meantime, the SNP and Greens would produce some vague triggers (like a surge in opinion poll support).

Now, if a second referendum is to happen, it is because of the constitutional crisis prompted by Brexit. Overall, most UK voters chose to leave the European Union, but most voters in Scotland chose to remain. The SNP and its allies will push for a second referendum on that basis, with reference to a ‘democratic outrage’. It possesses the votes to pass a bill to that effect in the Scottish Parliament, and needs some cooperation from a UK Government led by the party that just used a referendum to justify major constitutional change. It is difficult to see why the Conservative government would oppose a referendum under those circumstances (rather than allow it to take place and argue for the Union) even though UK government ministers have rejected the idea so far.

If a second referendum happens, it could happen before 2020. I am hesitant to say when exactly, partly because there is so much uncertainty, which too many people try to fill with needless speculation. For example, Sturgeon confirmed that it could happen as early as 2017, but only because the BBC asked her what she would do if the UK government behaved unreasonably.  In the same interview, Sturgeon also suggested that it may take a long time for the UK to invoke ‘Article 50’, which triggers a notional two-year negotiation period before the UK leaves the EU.

Before we know if a second referendum is likely, and the likely date, we need clarity on two things: (1) the extent to which the UK can (and is willing to) negotiate a deal with the EU which satisfies the SNP and Scottish voters (by becoming Brexit-lite or providing Scotland-specific provisions on key issues like free movement of people); and, (2) the timing of Brexit, since a Scottish referendum would hopefully not take place until we know what we are voting for (which might not happen until near the end of the notional two-year negotiations). Still, it is likely that the vote would be binary, as some version of: stay in the UK out of the EU, or leave the UK and stay in the EU.

Dissatisfaction with devolution is not the same as support for independence

Recent events reinforce the sense that Scottish devolution will never seem like a ‘settlement’. Instead, until recently, we have had a routine process in which: (a) there is a proposed devolution settlement, (b) it sticks for a while, (c) there is a rise in support for independence or further devolution, (d) there is another settlement.

So far, this has happened in 1999 (the first modern settlement), from the SNP’s first Holyrood win in 2007 (producing the Scotland Act 2011), and during the referendum itself (producing the Scotland Act 2016).

The difference this time is the sense – often generated by supporters and opponents of independence – that the 2016 Act is the final offer. If so, before Brexit, we had two key scenarios:

1. This offer proves to be too unpopular to maintain support for devolution, there is a further referendum, and no-one can offer more devolution in exchange for a No vote.
2. The 2016 Act finally helps address the idea of a ‘democratic deficit’ in which (a) most people in Scotland vote for one party in a UK General election (usually Labour, now SNP) but get another (often Conservative), and (b) this problem helps produce the sense that the UK Government is imposing unpopular policies on Scotland. For the new Act to work, you would need to generate the widespread sense, among the public, that a Scottish Government could choose to mitigate the effects of a UK Government (perhaps without raising taxes).

Now, things are a bit more complicated, since devolution is no longer simply about Scotland’s position in the UK. Scenario two now has to be accompanied by the sense (however true) that the Scottish Government is able to negotiate a distinctive relationship with the EU while remaining in the UK.

What happens in the meantime? The humdrum world of scrutiny and policymaking

In the meantime, Scottish politics exhibits an unusual twist on the usual tale of Westminster politics:

1. We have the familiar disconnect between two understandings of politics, in which (a) we use elections and some parliamentary scrutiny to praise or blame governments, but also (b) recognise the limits to central control, which undermine a meaningful sense of accountability.
2. This confusion is complicated by devolution and ‘multi-level governance’ in which we are not always sure about which level of government is responsible for which policy (although Brexit will remove a level from many of those relationships!)
3. It is complicated further by the 2016 Act, in which there are many new shared responsibilities between the Scottish and UK Governments.
4. So, politicians tell very different stories about what the Scottish Government can do, who is in charge, and who should take the blame for policy outcomes.
5. And the Scottish Parliament continues to struggle to know how best to try to hold the Scottish Government to account (and it might soon struggle a bit more).

Perhaps one possible exception is the new debate on educational attainment. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon staked a large part of her reputation on reducing the gap in attainment between students in the most and least deprived areas of Scotland. Before the election, she promised to ‘close the attainment gap completely’.

Although the SNP manifesto in 2016 presents more equivocal language (reflecting the sense that it does not know how much it can reduce the gap), it remains significant: as an issue in which there are constitutional complications (the Scottish Government does not control fully the economic and social security ‘levers’ affecting levels of deprivation), but the SNP is not using them to qualify its aims.

This example supplements several ongoing debates of high party political importance, in which there is not a constitutional element (on, for example, the Scottish Government’s ‘named person’ policy and legislation on ‘offensive behaviour’ in relation to football).

In the original version of this post, I signed off by speculating: ‘maybe such cases suggest that, for at least the next few years, we will pretend that there is a Scottish devolution settlement that that we are not just killing time until the next referendum’. It already seems like an out of date hope: the constitution is back at the top of our agenda, and I can’t remember the last time I read a story about domestic policy in Scotland.

 

What we know about consultation and policy-making

Here are some notes for today’s workshop on ‘consultation’, at the Law Reform and Public Policy Group, School of Law, University of Glasgow. I discuss key insights from policy theory, the idea of a ‘draft Act’, and how the ‘Scottish policy style’ fits into this discussion.

My second favourite phrase, as an undergraduate at Glasgow’s top University, was Brian Hogwood’s: ‘if consultation means everything, then maybe it means nothing’. It was a call to ‘unpack’ the term, whose meaning could range from cosmetic consultation in public to crucial interventions in private.

My first favourite was Grant Jordan and Jeremy Richardson’s ‘policy community’, which describes an important relationship between policymakers and some of the actors they consult (see also ‘informal governance’, including Alison Woodward’s example of the ‘velvet triangle’). The logic is as follows:

1. Policymakers are subject to ‘bounded rationality’: they cannot process issues comprehensively. By necessity, they have to make decisions in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. Uncertainty relates to the amount of information we have to inform policy and policymaking. Ambiguity relates to the way in which we understand policy problems. The policy process is therefore about (1) the short cuts that policymakers use to gather information and understand complex issues, and (2) the ways in which policy participants compete to determine which information is used and how policymakers understand problems.

2. Policymakers and key actors form policy networks or communities. To deal with bounded rationality, they delegate responsibility to civil servants who, in turn, rely on specialist organisations for information and advice. Those organisations trade information for access to government. This process often becomes routine: civil servants begin to trust and rely on certain organisations and they form meaningful relationships. If so, most public policy is conducted primarily through small and specialist ‘policy communities’ that process issues at a level of government not particularly visible to the public, and with minimal senior policymaker involvement. Network theories tend to consider the key implications, including a tendency for governments to contain ‘silos’ and struggle to ‘join up’ government when policy is made in so many different places.

3. Note the relevance to our current focus on ‘evidence-based policymaking’. In most cases, policymakers use consultation to reduce uncertainty: they gather information to help identify the size of a problem on which they already have a view. In some, they use it to reduce ambiguity: only some actors will influence how they understand and try to solve a policy problem, and therefore what further information they will seek.

4. Note the importance of pluralist democracy to some policymakers. Consider the implications of bounded rationality to democracy: we put our faith in representative democracy, but ministers can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of their responsibilities. A lot of practical responsibility is in the hands of civil servants, who partly seek legitimacy by consulting far and wide, to generate the ‘ownership’ of policy among key actors, professional groups, and perhaps ‘civil society’. This takes place well before, for example, a government presents a draft Act to Parliament and, in many cases, it produces policy without subsequent reference to Parliament.

If you put all these things together, you can see the importance of different kinds of consultation.

Consider a simple spectrum of consultation. At one end is cosmetic consultation: policymakers are paying high attention and they already know how they feel about a problem. So, they consult as part of a ‘standard operating procedure’ in which governments seek legitimacy, but the consultation will not influence their decision. Perhaps it comes towards the end of their deliberations.

At the other end is super-meaningful consultation, but perhaps with a small number of key people: they get together regularly, identify the issues that deserve most attention, and agree on how to ‘frame’ or understand the problem.

So, in our discussions, we might discuss how a range of activities fit in: the ‘trawling’ exercises to gain as many views as possible; working groups to generate questions for consultation; commissions to process rather technical looking issues, generally out of the public spotlight; other ‘pre-consultation’ with key actors before public consultation; and so on.

You can also see how the ‘Scottish Policy Style’ or ‘Scottish Approach’ fits in

We talk about a distinctive Scottish style or approach or system, but within the context that I describe above. There are three key reference points:

1. Cultural. In the olden days we talked of new Scottish politics versus old Westminster: Scottish policymaking would be more consensual and participative; the Scottish Government would share power with the Scottish Parliament; the Parliament would be the hub for much consultation, or at least oversee the Scottish Government process; the Parliament would have a better gender balance; and, policymakers would not simply consult the ‘usual suspects’.
2. Practical. In reality, most explanations for a Scottish policymaking culture relate to size and scale: it is easier for senior policymakers to form personal networks with key actors in interest and professional groups and with leaders of public bodies; and, a government with relatively low capacity relies relatively highly on external sources of information and advice.
3. Storytelling. Note that the Scottish Government tells a particular story about its approach, built on high consultation and trust in public bodies, stakeholders and service users, which informs its approach to evidence gathering and policy delivery: the Scottish Approach to Policymaking.

An agenda for the study of consultation in Scotland

It is useful to talk of a Scottish style of consultation, but investigate rather than assume its distinctiveness, and to interpret that distinctiveness rather than assume it relates broadly to a Scottish political culture.

This is true even before we consider consultation in a multi-level system, of which the Scottish Government is one of many governments that groups may want to consult.

I usually do this research through interviews with pressure participants and civil servants, which often involves trying to separate the story we tell about Scotland (where everyone knows everyone else) from the other drivers for policy and policymaking (education, mental health legislation, general, more general, even more general).

Other methods worth discussing include consultation analysis (Darren Halpin used to analyse the number and types of responses to open consultations), networks analysis to gauge the interaction between policy makers and participants, and comparative analyses in which we examine, for example, the extent to which consultation on legal reform resembles that of other sectors. If not, what makes ‘the law’ distinctive?

Brexit and the inevitability of Scottish Independence

My gut says that there will be a second referendum on Scottish independence and that Yes will win comfortably. Yet, predicting political events and outcomes right now is like predicting the weather. The result is not inevitable, largely because the key factors prompting people to vote No have not gone away – and, in some ways, the No case is now stronger. I’ll explain this by (a) comparing the likely Yes and No stories during the next campaign, and (b) speculating wildly about the extent to which key parties will campaign as hard for No in the second referendum.

Brexit is a Godsend for the strongest Yes stories: 1. only independence can remove the democratic deficit and guarantee that we make our own decisions.

It sounds like the Brexit ‘take our country back’ story, in which a remote government in a remote city makes decisions on our behalf without us having any say (it’s ‘London’ for Scotland, whereas in England/ Wales it can be London or ‘Brussels’).

Yet, there are key differences: the SNP is pro-immigration (its nationalism is ‘civic’, not ‘ethnic’) and the ‘democratic deficit’ means something else. When applied to the EU, it means that (a) few people know how it works and who, if anyone, is accountable, and (b) that it is difficult to vote for EU policymakers in the same way as we vote for national governments.

When applied to Scotland, it means that most voters in Scotland have tended to vote Labour or SNP in Westminster elections, but they often get a UK Tory government. So, a government with no legitimacy in Scotland makes decisions on our behalf, and there is nothing the Scottish Government can do about it.

In the campaign for devolution, this story developed in opposition to the Thatcherite imposition of things like the poll tax. In the campaign for independence, the poll tax became the bedroom tax.

In the next campaign for independence, the Brexit vote will become an important symbol for this argument: we voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU and we are being dragged out against our will by England (and Wales).

I think this argument will win the day, for two reasons. First, most of the 45% who voted Yes in 2014 seem like a sure bet for the next vote. Second, there are some people who voted No on the assumption of remaining in the UK in the EU. They now have to choose between (a) in the UK and out of the EU, or (b) in the EU and out of the UK.

2. Scottish independence is the cosmopolitan choice

Crucially, the Brexit is a godsend for the argument that Scottish independence is the cosmopolitan choice. It was too easy for opponents to argue in 2014 that nationalism was parochialism: by focusing on Scotland, you are removing yourself from the world. The counter-argument – let’s become independent to play a more positive role in that world – was relatively difficult to make.

Now, the door is open to argue that the Brexit vote reflects a Little England mentality, and that only Scottish independence offers the chance to cooperate fully with our European partners. In Scotland, cosmopolitan voters will share a campaign with nationalist voters.

Put these parts together and you have this story: independence is the only solution to being ruled from afar by the Tories who are determined (with the help of UKIP) to turn us into a Little England state which blames immigrants or the rest of the world for its problems.

Yet, the No story remains powerful too, for two original reasons and one new reason.

The No story: 1. Economic damage, uncertainty, and the currency issue

‘Better Together’ campaigned hard on the idea that a Yes vote will be economically damaging, producing a major government deficit in the short term with no guarantee of improvement in the long term (note that the rest of the UK is Scotland’s biggest trading partner, and we need their partnership). They also argued successfully that Scotland could no longer use Sterling if independent (which really meant that the Scottish Government would no longer enjoy the same crucial relationship with the Bank of England).

Most No voters will have felt good about their decision because the price of a barrel of oil plummeted after 2014, giving the impression that Scotland’s short term economic deficit would have been even higher. Further, the currency issue remains unresolved, and the main alternatives to using the pound with the UK Government/ BoE’s blessing (Sterlingisation, a Scottish pound, joining the Euro) still won’t seem like brilliant prospects to undecided voters.

The No story: 2. The Yes vote meant all things to all people.

A further No argument related to the idea that all sorts of people were making all sorts of claims about a future independent Scotland, and that they couldn’t all be right. The Scottish Government’s ‘White Paper’ was more sensible, but was still built on hope more than expectation. So, if you don’t share that optimism, it just looks like a long document designed to look professional and reassuring without really providing a blueprint for action or a measured set of expectations.

A third new part of the story: we now see what happens when you vote to leave (and it’s bad)

The biggest effect of the Brexit on the No story is that we can already see what happens when people vote to leave a political union:

(1) We immediately see that people were making all sorts of promises that they couldn’t keep, and/ or that key people backtrack very quickly (examples after the Brexit vote include the ridiculous £350m for the NHS claim, and the now more modest claims about immigration). It’s easy to say what you are leaving behind, but not what you will do instead.

(2) We immediately see some frightening economic consequences.

(3) We are about to discover how our former political partners will react, and it doesn’t look like they’ll simply hug us and wish us all the best.

So, (4) the No campaign will be about emphasising this uncertainty and the poor consequences of political divorce as they are happening in real time.

In the end, it comes down to who will tell these Yes/ No stories and how well they do it

The main problem for a new No campaign is that I don’t think it will have the same backing. In the first campaign, almost all of the main parties against independence signed up to a common project. Yet, it was damaging to Scottish Labour and I doubt they’ll sign up a second time to represent the ‘Red Tories’, particularly since many members will vote Yes next time.

It will be largely down to Ruth Davidson and the Scottish Conservatives, who campaigned in 2016 as the SNP’s main opposition and the defenders of the UK. Although they did pretty well in the Holyrood elections, pretty well means 23% of the vote.

In contrast, the SNP is a highly professional outfit, which lost a referendum but gained a huge membership, has a very popular leadership, and still enjoys an incredibly strong image of governing competence (particularly for a party in government for 9 years).

If you want to put it more simply and to personalise the next campaign, I simply say this:

Nicola Sturgeon has already perfected the look of someone pissed off with UK Government incompetence, reluctantly proposing a second referendum to deal with the mess, and able to reject most arguments about economic and political uncertainty as bloody rich coming from the people who just voted to leave the EU. Salmond might have looked too (‘I told you so’) smug to pull it off, but Sturgeon looks genuinely annoyed rather than opportunistic.

Who can perform the same function for the No side? There are almost no London-based politicians that could generate the same kind of respect that Sturgeon enjoys. Ruth Davidson is the next best thing, but she will spend a fair amount of each debate being a bit embarrassed about the situation in which she finds herself, through no fault of her own.

So, the irony may be that No has, in some ways, a stronger case in the second referendum but a far lower chance of success: it will lose because there will be no-one out there able to tell the No story.

This emphasis on telling simple stories well matters more than we would like to admit. The facts don’t speak for themselves: you turn them into a story to engage with people’s existing biases and tendency to base decisions on very little information.  So, who will tell and listen to the No story the next time around?

See also:

We are in danger of repeating the same mistakes if we bemoan low attention to ‘facts’

Heresthetics and referendums

I also wrote a million posts on the last Scottish referendum

 

 

Heresthetics and referendums

Heresthetic(s) describes the importance of the order of choice on political choices. The Scottish referendum process could become a brilliant example ….

William Riker invented the term heresthetics (or heresthetic) to describe the importance of a particular kind of manipulation:

one can help produce a particular choice if one can determine the context of, or order in which people make, choices.

Put simply, if you want to make something happen, it may be better to influence the institutions in which people make decisions, or frame issues to determine which particular aspect of a problem to which people pay attention, than change their minds about their preferences.

The prospect of a second referendum on Scottish independence could provide a nice, simple, example of this process.

Ideally, you would want to know about people’s preferences in considerable detail. After all, life is more complicated than binary choices suggest, and people are open to compromise. Yet, we tend to produce very simple binary referendums because they would otherwise be very difficult for most of the public to understand or for policymakers to interpret.

So, the way in which we simply that choice matters (for example, in Scotland, it led to the rejection of a third option – super dee duper mega max devolution – on the ballot paper, and therefore limited the choices of people who might have that third option as their first preference).

So too does the way in which we make several simple choices in a particular order.

Imagine a group of people – crucial to the outcome – whose main preference is that Scotland stays inside the UK in the EU:

1. In a referendum in which Scotland votes first, this group votes No to Scottish independence on the assumption that the result will best reflect their preferences (helping produce 55% No).
2. In a referendum in which Scotland votes after the UK (and the UK votes to leave the EU), many people will change their choice even if they have not changed their preferences (they would still prefer to be in the UK and EU, but that is no longer an option). So, some will choose to be in the UK out of the EU, but others will choose out of the UK and in the EU.

So, the order of choice, and the conditions under which we make choices, matters even when people have the same basic preferences. The people who voted No in the first referendum may vote Yes in the second, but still say that their initial choice was correct under the circumstances (and quite right too). Or, there may not be a second opportunity to choose.

This dynamic of choice is true even before we get into the more emotional side (some people will feel let down by the argument that a No vote was to stay in the EU).

Further reading:

If you want the Scottish argument in a less dispassionate form, read this by Alan Massie. If you want something more concise, see this tweet:

@BBCJamesCook "Staunch opponent" implies I was pro-union no matter what, which was never the case. Many no voters will think again now.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 24, 2016

If you want more on heresthetic, google William Riker and take it from there.

Or, have a look at my series on policymaking. In two-dozen different ways, these posts identify these issues of framing, rules, and the order of choice. Search, for example, for ‘path dependence’ which describes the often profound long term effects of events and decisions made in a particular order in the past.

Note, of course, that only some choice situations are open to direct manipulation. In our case, I don’t think anyone managed to produce a Leave vote in the EU referendum to get a second crack at Scottish independence 😉

Politics and law-making in the Scottish Parliament

These are some notes for my short talk to the Scottish Public Law Group Annual Conference on the 13th June 2016. My session includes Andy Beattie, Chief Parliamentary Counsel (role includes drafting Scottish Government legislation) and Lynda Towers (former solicitor to the Scottish Parliament). So, as the only non-lawyer in the building, I am largely there as the entertainment. Or, in the more formal legal language of the invite, providing ‘reflections on the influence/impact of minority government on law/policy making, in addition to a more general policy/political studies perspective on law-making at Holyrood’.

I’d like to keep my discussion short, so will make a small number of points:

1. The uncertain importance of new politics.

In the olden days (1999), people talked about the Scottish Parliament and its committees representing the heart of ‘new Scottish Politics’. The phrase accompanied a vague suggestion about ‘power sharing’ and the committees having a more important role than their Westminster counterparts. Some of this related to necessity, and you can see the results (e.g. there is no second chamber, so they ‘front loaded’ the legislative process). Some of it related to vague hopes for a new culture of policymaking, and you struggle to see the results.

2. The importance of draft Acts.

The old literature on UK politics (on ‘policy communities’) talks about the political importance of draft Acts: by the time a bill gets to Parliament, the government (and its allies, involved in negotiating the policy in the draft) does not want to change it. It can modify at the margins, but a major change to the bill will necessitate more negotiation as well as more drafting. I think you can see this play out under ‘normal’ conditions: a government will signal which parts of the bill it can be flexible with, and the parts it will try to protect almost unchanged.

3. The meaning of high quality legislation.

I was struck by Andy Beattie’s reference (in his slides) to ‘Drafting legislation to: deliver Scottish Government policy; and, secure the Scottish Parliament’s reputation for making high quality law which serves the people of Scotland well’. We might discuss two criteria for ‘high quality’ which don’t always mix well: one is the professional/ technical criteria reflecting the skill in turning broad policy aims into specific laws and regulations; another is the political criteria reflecting the chance for Parliament to debate and change legislation when introduced. Maybe they don’t always rub up badly against each other, but the thing that would possibly help – ‘pre-legislative scrutiny’ or engagement – often seems as or more visible in ‘old Westminster’.

4. The impact of minority government.

Put simply, I didn’t see much difference during the last phase of minority government. There were two clear examples of major legislation not brought forward (on a referendum on independence, and on local income tax) and one important rejected section (on the minimum unit price of alcohol), but these examples related largely to temporary party politics rather than the more enduring government-legislature relationship.

5. The importance of ‘anticipated reactions’.

A key argument (made most strongly about Westminster) is that the power of Parliaments comes in the actions of ministers and civil servants. We talk of ‘anticipated reactions’ to describe the lengths that the government takes to ensure that the legislation it drafts will not be vulnerable to too much parliamentary opposition. This seems important, but so too does the need for government and parliament actors to tell that story because it suits almost everyone involved.