Is John Swinney capable of showing the leadership needed to break with the Sturgeon era?

There is a time for everything – a time to campaign and a time to govern. And now is the time to govern.

Reform UK is on the slide, no longer the threat once supposed. There is less need to pander to the populists, to compete in soundbites and simplistic ‘answers’ to complex problems. 

There is no prospect of another independence referendum any time soon. John Swinney must now know that he needs to create some distance between his premiership and the Sturgeon era. Sturgeon showed him little loyalty during the difficult end to his first period as SNP leader and shows even less now. Back in 2003, Swinney told his party that it needed to make the “painful transition” from being a “party of protest to being a party of government”. That transition is sorely needed now.

This is the time to think long-term. The unprecedented political capital left in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum was frittered away. The SNP has little political capital and so it will need to reach out to others. The ‘others’ have too often been Scottish Government-funded bodies that cannot afford to fall foul of ministers and Scottish Government officials. This has not served Scotland well.  

Bodies such as Cosla need to rediscover the independence and more critical faculties that were evident in earlier times. There is also a need for a more mature relationship with the UK Government and reason to believe this is possible. 

It is unlikely the SNP can entirely wean itself off pointless demands for another referendum, but it needs to spend more time working constructively across governments. The so-called ‘Celtic Alliance’ offers little prospect of improving public services given fundamentally opposing views on devolved funding. Ignoring England makes no sense whatsoever.

Andy Burnham has placed some ambitious aims on the agenda. Social care reform, devolving and decentralising power and resources, and tackling homelessness will all require leadership, persistence, and collaboration. Scotland’s problems are no different and it makes sense for cooperation, with necessary detailed differences, and lesson sharing. The prospect of meaningful reform in Scotland will increase if similar challenges, difficult and painful decisions, are being addressed south of the border.

This will bring long-term benefits for Scotland. It could also help the independence cause. The transition to independence will be painful, involving difficult choices. It would not simply be about pulling down the Union flag and raising a Saltire. It will require lengthy, intense and very challenging negotiations with a more powerful neighbour. All of this would be made easier if Scotland’s bargaining position was strengthened, if Scotland’s fiscal position was much healthier and if economic and societal challenges were minimised. But this necessitates addressing weaknesses too long ignored.

There has been much talk of public service reform though less evidence of much happening. There is a need to start with some fundamentals. There is and can be no definitive reform. Society and the economy undergo constant change, including rapid technological innovation creating a constant mix of new contexts, new challenges and new opportunities. What may have been necessary a generation ago may not – though may well in many cases – no longer be best.

Change is not in itself worthwhile. All too often minor disruptive innovations add little and often undermine good patterns of activity. Speak to frontline staff to get a sense of the pointlessness of much innovation. Change comes at a cost.  The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs, and this is not simply a financial consideration.

Rebadging existing efforts, tacking on ‘prevention’, etc, and creating specialist units and hubs is evasive. Dispensing with performative paraphernalia would be a good start. The serious business of reform starts from below and that requires the centre to let go.

Blueprints, especially devised at the centre, are dangerous. One of the most ill-informed commentary on the Christie Commission on the Delivery of Public Services is that it failed to produce an action plan. Such ignorance is dangerous. It speaks of the very top-down, centralist mentality that has done much damage.  All that can be provided is a broad set of principles. Christie provided these – it was not rocket science, nothing novel but a clear statement of principles. How these should be enacted will vary hugely and cannot be detailed in one report. Even illustrative examples of good practice need to treated carefully. The diversity of services and communities must be taken into account.

The myth of uniform service provision with the criticism of the ‘postcode lottery’ is based on a strange understanding of public services. With few exceptions, the delivery of public services will inevitably vary across Scotland. So long as services are delivered locally by teachers, nurses, police officers, refuse collectors, social workers and the numerous others who actually deliver services, then uniformity is unachievable. That reality needs to be embraced.

The tension between accountability and discretion is unavoidable. Trade-offs are the stuff of public policy. We now have the worst of all worlds across many public services – less discretion for those at the sharp end of delivering services while central decision makers shirk responsibility. Every minister or senior official needs to be reminded that delivering a speech is easy. Delivering improved outcomes is where the challenge lies.

Public service delivery involves a degree of trust and risk. Things will go wrong. And how we respond is important. Hard cases make bad law. Similarly, when something goes wrong we need to reflect, learn and improve. But that does not always mean a wholescale reorganisation, weighing those who deliver services with overbearing regulations.

One of the most damaging features of much public policy is the tendency to cover-up errors and/or to claim success using partial evidence. The latter is a consequence of perverted accountability. Data of some sort can usually be found to present evidence of ‘success’. Instead of scrambling around to find some evidence of how successful Scotland’s ferry services have been for example, it would be best to acknowledge and address errors, recognise and empower expertise in our island communities.

Resources have become the primary focus of attention of late. Roz Foyer of the STUC has usefully warned that: “Everyone and their dog knows what public sector reform means – it is manager-speak for ‘cuts’”. Financial incontinence has meant that vast sums of money have been squandered due to perverted accountability, absence of serious public service reform, and populist decision-making. Cuts are not public service reform though much more serious analysis of how public money has been spent is needed. There have been previous analyses but no action. Privately, many in the SNP know that the starter pack for primary school kids is illustrative of the Sturgeon-era politics that has not served Scotland well.

Much greater consideration needs to be given to existing and new expenditure lines – more rigorous testing of opportunity costs involved, impacts and outcomes. This will require a major shift in thinking within the Scottish Government.

The ‘first hundred days’, as a former White House senior adviser remarked, is a “Hallmark holiday”, an artificial marker that receives much attention but is of no real significance. It is an overspill of the campaign. It has to end and the serious business of governing begin. The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government will be a test of whether Swinney is capable of showing the leadership needed to break with the Sturgeon era.