Many will be familiar with important campaigns urging Scots to donate blood or to consider becoming an organ donor in the event of their death. However, a call earlier this month asking people to consider donating their voices caught my attention. An innovative new research project organised by the Euan MacDonald Centre and the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics team is seeking volunteers to record their voice as part of a project that, one day, will enable them to “repair” patient voices that have been damaged through conditions such as Motor Neurone Disease or stroke, and thus provide them with a more personalised voice than the current communication aid provision. Not being able to communicate in their own voice leaves many patients feeling frustrated and it is hoped that a...

Ask any car owner or talkative cabbie and they’ll tell the same story – for the past few years, harsh winters combined with shrinking council budgets have left roads in a terrible state. While many will dismiss this as small fry, it is a serious problem and one which local authorities are struggling with. Potholes, along with dog poo and nuisance seagulls, are one of the main causes of consternation for local communities. While complaints about burst tyres and crumbling speed bumps are hardly uncommon, a recent Accounts Commission report on the state of Scotland’s roads has reiterated what a serious problem this is. The commission said major changes called for two years ago to improve the management of roads maintenance have yet to result in significant improvement in road...

Scottish Coal’s collapse has raised one of those tricky questions about the murky grey area where the environment and economics meet. The company, responsible for operating six open cast mines in East Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire and Fife, has closed, affecting more than 600 jobs. Action from Energy Minister Fergus Ewing was swift – he set up the Scottish Open Cast Mining Taskforce with the aim of ensuring that as many jobs as possible could be retained and the SNP minister told the Parliament it was hoped the preferred bidder, Hargreaves, would be able to preserve about 300 jobs in the first six months, with a rise of up to 500 in the first year – if it takes over. He also took the opportunity to warn that the biggest threat to the coal industry was the increased freight charges to...

On the face of it, the question seems a simple one premised on punishment and rehabilitation: should inmates incarcerated in Scotland’s prisons be allowed to watch TV into the early hours and, in so doing, be confined to their beds for much of the subsequent day? But the practicalities are not as straightforward as just flicking a switch. That’s the essence of a joint response from the Scottish Government and Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to the Justice Committee’s recent inquiry into purposeful activity, which reiterated a concern voiced by the inspectorate that some offenders enjoy unlimited access to Coronation Street, Eastenders and the like. “The SPS note that the Justice Committee recognise that prisoners should be allowed a reasonable time to watch television and SPS accept...

There are inescapable equality issues stemming from the introduction of smartphones and tablets into the classroom. The Scottish Government has made clear that it doesn’t have the resources to provide every school child in the country with a device on a 1:1 basis – by definition, there will therefore be haves and have nots, whether the dividing line is between individual classes or years within a single school, or schools in different local authority areas. That kind of inequality is inevitable; indeed, some school leaders want the power to spend money on devices themselves, so that their pupils can get the benefits of the technology even if those at a neighbouring school can’t. The scenario that everyone is most eager to avoid, however, is one where that line falls between two...