Chamber and committees

One of the things that were mentioned by former senior civil servants to whom we spoke was that they were of the view that there should be a separation between policy development and implementation. Incidentally, that view was not shared by former ministers, which is quite interesting. Where do you think that kind of boundary should lie?

I will move on to my colleagues round the table.

Perhaps there is also an issue about not always feeling the need to hit the ground running.

You were very straightforward about behaviours and you talked about keeping an open mind, genuine listening and a rational approach.

That was an excellent answer in a very short time; you covered it in a nutshell. The them-and-us approach that we had several decades ago has dissipated, at least in companies that want to be successful. All levels of a company have to push in the same direction, and it helps when people are involved in that direction.

I worked at a pharmaceutical company that had a staff suggestion scheme through which it asked us all to come up with ideas about how to improve how the company delivered, but nobody submitted any ideas. I suggested to my manager, who passed it up the line, that if the company gave people an incentive, it might find that things would be different. It was then decided that members of staff could get up to 10 per cent of any savings that were made through implementation of a policy that they had suggested, and the company was overwhelmed with suggestions about improvements that it could make.

You probably heard me talk about participation versus consultation in the public sector in our session with the first panel. Staff being able to participate in their company and to suggest ideas that would be directly beneficial to them, as well as to the long-term delivery of the company’s objectives, is obviously helpful.

Thank you for that. I should have said “Deputy Prime Minister” instead of “Prime Minister”.

Dr Foster, do you want to add anything on that question?

There should also be ownership of policy right through from conception to delivery and post-legislative scrutiny. Of course, that relies on the ministers being in post, as we touched on earlier.

One of the things that I have been very curious about in terms of the evidence that we have taken from former ministers, former senior civil servants, current civil servants and academics is that there has been absolutely no mention whatsoever from anyone of special advisers, whose role is ill-defined; they appear to have no specific job description.

Special advisers have been around for 45 to 50 years, and of course they are endemic both in Whitehall and here in the Scottish Parliament. Boris Johnson had 126 of them, on an average salary of £102,000. At Holyrood, there were 17 of them last autumn—on an average salary of £92,000, incidentally—and now there are 12, I understand. What is their relationship like with civil servants and how do they fit into ministerial decision making?

I will wind up with a couple of questions. We touched on consultation when Ross Greer asked his questions, but I think that the issue is not about consultation; I think that people want to feel that they are involved at the start, and that it is really about participation.

For example, the first major consultation that I was involved in was 25 years ago when I was a councillor in Glasgow. The local authority announced that it was gonnae close nine of the 38 secondary schools in the city. It named the nine and there was then gonnae be a consultation on whether each one should close. Remarkably, six months later, the nine that they had announced were the nine that they actually voted to close. There was a huge feeling that it had been a cynical manoeuvre and a box-ticking exercise. Twenty-five years later, that is still a real concern.

Surely, we should not be talking too much about consultation but rather about people participating in policy development at an early stage. People should be consulted on what Government is going to do but also allowed to participate in the development of that policy, rather than having put to them, “This is the policy. What do you think about it?” Most of the time, Governments are gonnae come back and say, “Well, we’re still gonnae plough ahead with perhaps only minor changes.”

Other members might probe that. Sandy, do you want to say anything before I move on to colleagues?

Do our witnesses have any further points that they would like to make before we wind up the session? Is there anything that you think that we should have touched on but did not?