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Editor's note
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 Classroom politics
Mandy Rhodes
Today the embattled education minister, Fiona Hyslop, will present the Scottish Government’s School Estate Strategy. It’s been a difficult time for Hyslop, under fire over so many things including: class sizes, teacher numbers and delivery of Curriculum for Excellence. More than once the Opposition has called for her to go and today will offer her no succour. Holyrood understands that the School Estate Strategy, will only fuel the arguments about where our children are taught rather than what they learn and will finally give Labour the hard evidence that it needs that the SNP’s ideological opposition to PFI is just... |
Interview
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Focus
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The Forsyth Saga
Mandy Rhodes - 28 September 2009
With the prospect of the Tories running the next Westminster Government, former Conservative wunderkind, Lord Michael Forsyth of Drumlean, looks back to the future
For those of us who remember with some antipathy the Thatcher years, the extraordinary salivation and hand rubbing that accompanies predictions of the demise of the current Labour Government and the triumphant return of a Tory one at Westminster, is viewed with a weird mixture of denial, relief and fear. Have things really got so bad that a Conservative Government would offer succour? Given what came before: the miners’ strike, the Falklands, the first Iraq war, the... |
Thinking outside the box
Cera Murtagh - 28 September 2009
 Is it time to look beyond local authorities for delivery of education?
Scotland’s reputation as a world leader in education has taken some blows of late. Cold hard data is progressively chipping away at that image. And as the uncomfortable realisation sinks in, the calls for action are growing louder. At the same time, talk of public sector cuts is focusing minds on getting the maximum from the money spent on education. So is it time to take a radical look at how education is delivered in Scotland? Recent studies have put the situation into stark context. After ten years of... |
Insight
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Remember me
Katie Mackintosh - 28 September 2009
 Looking ahead to Scotland’s first dementia strategy
The elderly gentleman takes his place behind the podium and clears his throat to begin, “Hello, my name is Richard and I have Alzheimer’s disease.” Richard Taylor has made this declaration many times. A former psychologist, Taylor was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 61. Now, aged 66, he travels the globe sharing his account of what he calls “the growing division between his world and the world of others.” He recalls the moment several... |
Portfolios
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| Local Government |
Working together
Lynne Whitelaw 28 September 2009
The Improvement Service’s chief executive Colin Mair talks about why he feels councils are better placed... |
The long road home
Lynne Whitelaw 28 September 2009
With housing identified as an area where the budgets will fall, can local authorities still meet the... |
| Education |
Making the grade
Cera Murtagh 28 September 2009
In his first interview as SQA chair, Graham Houston outlines his priorities
There is an obvious irony... |
Coaching for change
Cera Murtagh 28 September 2009
The former British athletics chief has a message for Scottish teachers
If ever there was a profession in need of... |
| Health |
A laughing matter
Katie Mackintosh 28 September 2009
Is laughter the best medicine?
There is a scene in the movie Patch Adams, based on the true life story of... |
First impressions
Katie Mackintosh 28 September 2009
Developing youth-friendly health policies
According to the World Health Organisation, nearly two thirds of premature deaths and one third of the total... |
| Business |
Where credit’s due
Will Peakin 28 September 2009
Insolvency service head Gillian Thompson reflects on achievements and disappointments in a distinguished civil service career
“BANKRUPTCY is a sacred state,”... |
Where’s the muck?
Will Peakin 28 September 2009
Business should be investing in environmental and clean technologies, according to experts
The Scottish and UK Governments are stepping up their efforts... |
| Justice |
Who watches the watchmen?
Rory Cahill 28 September 2009
Rory Cahill meets John McNeill, newly appointed Scottish Police Complaints Commissioner
If you are working in the justice field, there are not many career experiences... |
Safety first
Rory Cahill 28 September 2009
Is the way in which we deal with health and safety in the workplace flawed? Rory Cahill meets... |
Columnists
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Also in this issue
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Henry McLeish |
| Saying the ‘C’ word |
| SO now we are in the conference (and preelection) season and all the political parties are using the C-word (for cuts). This is a commonsense position the public arrived at... |
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Letter of the week
Future of our industry
Skills development is key to Scotland’s economic recovery plan. Regardless of the tough economic climate, we must continue to train our workforce now to avoid a skills shortage in the... |
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John Curtice |
| Wielding the axe |
| So the genie is out of the bottle. Even Gordon Brown now admits that there will have to be ‘cuts’ in public spending. In the wake of his admission, politicians... |
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Spotted - Issue 219
28 September 2009
Christine Grahame testing out the ‘publish your own book’ interactive exhibit at the opening of the National Library’s... |
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Jim Sillars |
| The first cut |
| When, when, when will the alarm bells start ringing at Holyrood? If the first exchanges over John Swinney’s budget are... |
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Diary
Hmmmm …
We at Holyrood like to think of ourselves as a top-shelf publication, very much in the spirits sense, rather than... |
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Rab McNeil |
| Chewing the fat |
| CAN our beloved Parliament ever have had to deal with a trickier problem than that presented by the pupils of Knowetop Primary School, Motherwell? On the face of it, the... |
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Letters
16 and 17 year olds deserve their chance
Whether or not Scotland is given the opportunity to decide on its constitutional future in a referendum, I’d like to wholeheartedly... |
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Salmond lays out legislative programme
